Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s been a while since Stelle held a pen in her hands. 

The trailblazer taps the end of the pen on her chin, leaned over the desk in her room, staring down the blank page of a journal. Sunday had said keeping a journal helps with straightening out your thoughts, and dealing with your feelings. “What would I need to do that for?” she’d asked, only to receive a pointed look and a pair of raised eyebrows from the halovian. 

“I don’t need tuning to see that you have a lot on your mind,” he’d answered, tapping his fingers on the book he himself carried, “just give it a try.” 

So here she was, with an empty journal Dan Heng had found tucked away on a shelf in the archives, and a nice but mundane pen offered by Mr. Yang. 

Stelle sighs and leans far back in her chair, enough for it to nearly tip over backwards. She had just spent so much time writing prose and recording history that writing about the present, about herself, was proving very difficult. Her gaze drifts–the pink plume she obtained in Amphoreus sits in her trophy case, its power inert since leaving the bounds of the scepter. She almost thought to take it back out for this, but it felt wrong to do so. Its task is complete. It deserves its rest. 

She could use some rest too, but the life of a trailblazer is anything but uneventful, and it had only been a short time before the Astral Express had to move on to its next destination... even though it felt like her mind was still stuck in that golden cage.

Okay. Maybe journaling isn’t that bad an idea.

Turning away from the trophy case, she stares out the window of the Express instead, twirling the pen between her fingers. Distant stars move at their usual snail’s pace as the train travels along the silver rail, same as they always do. After being denied them for so long, the sight of them brings her comfort. 

A sigh, a click, and Stelle puts pen to paper again.

//////

Entry 1

Don’t know how to start this, which is a little funny, since I’ve been writing down stories for well over a year now. I suppose it’s easier when you’re not writing about yourself. 

The others are worried about me, which is fair, I guess. They were worried about Dan Heng and March too, reasonably so, but even those two have been hovering around me more than usual. Sunday must have his halovian telepathy or something on overdrive because, weirdly enough, he’s been the fussiest out of all of them, being the one to recommend writing in a journal. 

So here we are. Not sure what this’ll achieve. I’ll try to write in this more than just the once, even though it kind of feels like I’ve written enough to last a couple lifetimes. Maybe it’s time for bed. 

Entry 2

Still have a few stops to go before we reach our next destination. We spent a lot more time on Amphoreus than expected, so we have some catching up to do. Sleeping is still a little difficult and I’m tired afterward, it feels like I’m having nightmares I can’t remember when I wake. Miss Tingyun offered me some fancy Xianzhou incense sticks–supposedly they help with relaxing? It’s nice of her to be worried, but it’s really, really weird to have even her fuss. I guess I get it though. We must still look like a mess.

Entry 3

Shush is being weirder than usual. They keep trying to give me every possible combination of calming or sweet drink they can come up with. Is Shush more perceptive than they seem, or is it really that obvious? Yikes.
March spooked them off, but not before taking two of the drinks and dragging me into one of the booths of the party car. At first she was going to keep the sparkly pink one, but after a moment, she traded it to me for something that looked like it was full of chocolate. I expected her to talk more, but she mostly just sat with me while we stared at the stars out the window. There’s something in her eyes that wasn’t there before, something sharp that didn’t match the rest of her face. It makes sense. She’s been through a lot too. 

Entry 4

Slept really badly today. Gonna need a long bath tonight. Finding myself missing the big one at the top of the Marmoreal Palace, it was always exactly as warm as it needed to be.

Kind of wish the nightmares would stay forgotten. I only remember bits and pieces, but everything was… too dark, and somehow too bright all at once. Something from above was trying to catch me, I felt like a spider fleeing a cup. Left me really anxious when I woke up.

Not much to do on the train today, so I rearranged my shelves. They’d gotten dusty while I was gone. 

Entry 5

Miss Tingyun’s incense is really nice, I finally remembered to use it. I think it’s sandalwood and chamomile? I’ll have to ask later. Maybe Dan Heng would like the smell too, though I don’t know if the nostalgia would help, or hurt… I feel like I haven’t seen him in a couple days. I should check on him tomorrow.

Another weird dream. The night sky over my head was cracking, and gold light was pouring through. It was kind of pretty, until the light started pouring down like a liquid instead. I woke up before it reached me. Kind of glad for it.

Entry 6

I snapped at Sunday today. It felt really bad. He was fussing again, and I know he doesn’t mean to be overbearing, but it was just too much today. I’d had another nightmare and gotten just about no sleep. I apologized; he seemed to understand and gave me space, but he looked a little put out, like he really still wanted to help. I could feel Black Swan and Tingyun watching from across the car. It was embarrassing, so I made myself scarce. Pom-pom showed up in my room later with another drink from Shush, but they didn’t say anything about it. I’m sure they knew, though. 

I brought Dan Heng some of Tingyun’s incense before it got too late. He was grateful, but he looked really tired. He mentioned he’d been trying to add everything we learned about Amphoreus to the archives’ database, which… seems to me like a tall order, but I don’t think he’s getting any sleep either, and I understand wanting to stay busy. He gave me kind of a look when I told him to let me know if he needed anything. I just left before I said something mean at him too. Not really fair to make everyone else deal with my crap right now, but I’m getting kind of tired of the pity. 

I was pushing a rock up a mountain in the nightmare that time. Sometimes I could see my hands on the rock, and sometimes they were other people’s–golden gauntlets, black gloves, pale tattoos, bare hands covered in blood. It felt like it lasted an eternity. It felt like my arms were going to crack under the strain. My foot slipped, and I woke up right before the rock crushed me. It sucked.

Entry 7

I miss them. 

Stelle sets down her pen, a long exhale shuddering out from deep in her chest. Aeons, this was harder than it used to be.

For a long time, she’d been so used to not having memories that she hadn’t considered what a burden they could be. Then, she found herself surrounded by those struggling under the weight of it. Dan Heng, his memory fractured, both his and not his, fighting to leave the shadow of that past; March, memories left blank for her own safety, now grappling with their return; Welt, with the memory of a world he can never return to. Every time, she had to stop and think, what am I missing by not knowing? Is it easier, being unburdened?
She remembers the golden-blooded heroes, and the one who shone above all others–fated for destruction, and fighting that fate with all his might, the burden of millions and millions of lives on his shoulders, millions and millions of lifetimes’ worth of memories to carry in his heart. Another shuddering breath, as she remembers the depths of suffering they all endured, that he endured, in their efforts to save not only their world, but the cosmos. She remembers it all going up in brilliant golden flame. The ember in her chest burns white hot.

She picks up her pen.

Entry 7

I miss them. I think I get why Kafka emptied my head before leaving me with nothing but a stellaron in my chest, and a million questions. It was easier to keep moving forward, without the weight of memory. After Amphoreus, after Irontomb, after seeing what the burden of millions of lifetimes of memory looked like, I think get it. I’m still having nightmares about it.

Sometimes I wonder if I could have carried it all the way he did. He thought I could. He wouldn’t have left me with his name if he didn’t. But I feel weak, finding myself frozen by the memories, as though Fuli THEMSELF had cast me in their chill. A burden millions of times smaller than his, and sometimes it feels like I can barely breathe. 

What happened to us wasn’t fair. What happened to him was pure cruelty. I find myself furious, even now, when all that could be done has already been done. When my heart doesn’t feel like it’s frozen in ice, it burns with what I hope is justified rage. Is this how he felt too? Could I ever be angry enough to make an AEON bleed? Maybe I’ll find out someday. 

Entry 8

Feel a bit better today, after some sleep. I guess this thing helps.

I had a kinder dream last night, about a shooting star. It blazed across the night sky, leaving a trail of brilliant gold in its wake. I reached up to it, but it was out of my reach. Only just. I sat in the grass and watched it fly away instead. It was nice.

We’re going to the Herta Space Station tomorrow, Welt wanted to drop some stuff back off with Herta after she let us borrow it for the Amphoreus Situation. One of these days I have to sit down and ask exactly how the hell they managed to crack that thing open from the outside. It was already hard enough to do it from the inside, and that was with Cyrene and Phainon working together… Now that I think about it, we haven’t had much time to tell our side either. Maybe if we find Herta herself, we can tell it like a report or something. Though we might get held up and tested on for science. Would prefer not to get scienced at.

Entry 9

WE GOT SCIENCED AT

It wasn’t that bad, actually. I think we all made a face when the Simulated Universe was brought up, because Herta’s puppet stared at us for a second before deciding against it. Screwllum was still here too, helping Herta go over the mountains of data they collected from Lygus’ development logs, and the additional mountain we dumped on them from the train’s logs. He said something about maybe making a branch of the Divergent Universe to test on Amphoreus’ data, but he didn’t seem too rushed about it, like he didn’t want to pressure us into participating. It was nice of him. 

I brought Sunday some Kapo-kali from the station. It’s not Soulglad, but I hoped he’d accept it as an extra apology. He insisted I didn’t need to apologize twice, but I could see the tension dissipate from the way he held his wings. I still feel a little bad. He asked me if the journal was helping, and I told him the jury was still out on it, which is an honest answer, I think. He offered tuning too, since he can actually still do that outside the Dreamscape to an extent. I don’t know that I really want anybody in my head right now, but I told him I’d think about it. 

//////

Everything was burning.

The weapon was heavy in her hands, and her heart sat even heavier, burning fiercely in the hollow of her chest. Countless people fell before her, behind her, around her, one by one, blood red and gold painting the ground around her feet. She couldn’t quite see the faces of those before her. They weren’t the focus right now. She had a mission to complete. This world needed to be saved.

The sky was dissolving into black nothingness, the edges bleeding red before they disappeared into the void. The sun had already died. There was blood on her blade’s edge. There was blood on her hands. Was it hers? It didn’t matter. She forged ahead, dragging that heavy weapon behind her as exhaustion started to creep into her limbs. She tried to heave air into her lungs, but her chest felt tight. Was it exertion? Was it fear? It didn’t matter. This world needed to be saved, at all costs, even as it fell apart around her.

Her foes stood before her. Behind her were only the stacked corpses of those deemed expendable by prophecy, by the cruel god who made this world. These anomalies would be added to the pile soon. She moved closer, and their faces came into focus. A scythe was sent flying into the air, golden blood spattering after it; blade thrusted past blade, and another gilded body found its way to the ground; gold poured from the space left by that sharp and jagged point, staining over red and black as yet another fell; blades and bows and shields all shattered under her righteous fury. Her body moved on its own even as her mind caught up, and horror began to set in. What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing? She held that upwelling of grief close in her chest, more fuel for the fire. This world needed to be saved.

Fury bubbled up in her chest again as one final foe approached, and threatened to drown out the grief and the terror. She wanted to run. Rage, determination, desperation kept her rooted, weapon raised in defiance as her final opponent barreled towards her, rancor in his voice to match the fire in her chest, blue and gold trailing behind him like the tail of a comet.

Blades clashed. The world burned around them. Her heart threatened to pound out of her chest. This is wrong. This is wrong. This is wrong. A swing of a blade, and her foe’s weapon is ripped from his hand–she watched it land point-first in the ground nearby. A gauntleted hand reached forward and gripped that foe by the neck, lifting him into the air. It felt like that growing terror gripped her own neck just the same, as that wicked jagged blade lifted, already stained in the golden ichor of millions of gods and heroes that came before. Their sacrifices would not be in vain. The world needed to be saved. 

She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. The sound that left her mouth was purest rage and purest grief, as that blade pierced through the hero’s chest. THIS IS WRONG. THIS IS WRONG. THIS IS WRONG. Her fear found the cracks in his rage and pressed through, the grip on the hero’s throat loosening and the fire in her chest dimming as though it had suddenly been deprived of oxygen, but it was too late. This world needed to be saved.

The hero’s hand reached down to grip the hilt of the blade that pierced his chest, almost pulling himself closer to grip that gauntleted hand holding it, and suddenly, not only was the world around them burning, but they both were too. 

The scream that had been trapped in her own chest finally broke through, agony and fear in equal measure, and the hand gripping hers hesitated for just a moment… but the blaze was too powerful now. The form of the hero impaled on her blade flickered with the surge of flames–a gloved hand becoming clawed gauntlets, gilded wings emerging from his back in a burst of flames, the halo behind his head burning more brightly than the sun. Their eyes met, and in that hero’s golden eyes she saw fury, then confusion, then fear. He shut his eyes as if wracked with a sudden wave of pain, and tore the blade from his chest, a trail of molten gold following its path.

A surge of red spilled from the cracks in his body even as he tried to contain it with his hands, leaking from his mouth like blood, staining his body with the black corruption that was consuming the sky. When he opened his eyes again, they had turned dark. His mouth moved, and though the sound of his words was consumed by the flames, she could still see his desperate plea–

You have to end this. This is how the world will be saved.

The fire and the darkness consumed them both.

Stelle finds herself on the ground, blinded, trapped, and out of breath. It takes a moment of panicked hyperventilating to realize where she is, and she presses her hands to her face, trying to calm her rabbiting heart. Hold your breath for four seconds. Exhale for four. Hold it for four. Inhale for four. Hold it for four…

Her heart rate slows. The fire in her chest cools. Her world is not currently ablaze. Stelle feels around for the edge of her blanket and manages to extricate herself from it, opting instead to lie on the cool floor of her room. Anything was better than that horrific heat. She feels a lump under her back, and twists to tug at the intrusion–her journal. She must have fallen asleep before she was able to write something. The most recent page was slightly crinkled where she likely rolled over onto it. She sighs, and tosses it up half-heartedly onto the nightstand behind her. It bounces off the edge and nearly falls back down onto her face. With a frustrated groan, she instead grips the edge of her bed and attempts to pull herself up, only to find that her arms are shaky, still trying to shake off the echoing terror of the memory that dream dragged to the surface. 

She has enough reach to grab her phone. It’s late. The odds of someone being awake are low. She lies back down in the mess of blankets on her bedroom floor and tries it anyway.

Stelle

[3:47] Hey

[3:47] Are you awake

March

[3:47] Would you be mad if I said yes?

Stelle

[3:48] Well you answered immediately so i think i can assume lol

March

[3:48] (＞人＜；）

[3:48] Whatever! 

[3:48] What’s up?

Stelle

[3:48] Is it alright if I come down for a bit?

March

[3:48] Are you okay??

Stelle

[3:49] Had a really bad nightmare. Don’t wanna be alone tonight

[3:49] Not for a bit, at least

March

[3:49] !!!!!!! STAY PUT! I’ll be up there in a jiffy!!! 

Stelle

[3:49] You don’t have to come up I can come down

March

[3:49] NOPE, you are staying put and I am bringing friends. ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ

Stelle

[3:50] What in the ever loving heck is that supposed to mean

Stelle drops her hand to her chest, her phone thumping softly down with it. Well. I’ll find out soon enough , she supposes. She takes March’s order to heart and stays put on the ground right where she is, closing her eyes and trying to will herself to imagine anything but fire until the door to her room opens with a soft hiss. 

“Stelle!” she hears March’s voice call, though it was just a bit muffled for some reason. “Stelle?” came the call again, and she realizes she’s wholly invisible on the other side of the bed–she raises a hand and waves it, hoping it’s high enough to spot from the other side. Stelle is quickly answered with an alarmed March Noise™. “What are you doing down there? ” 

“Fell off,” Stelle answers dumbly, not sure what other answer March was looking for. A series of Somethings gently thumps onto her bed above her, and a second set of footsteps on her other side catches her off-guard. Stelle looks up to see Dan Heng offering her a hand, and she takes it, allowing him to help pull her up onto wobbly feet. She grabs onto his arm for just a moment to stabilize herself, and he allows it, his other hand briefly gripping her shoulder to keep her steady. “Don’t tell me March woke you up for this,” Stelle grumbles as she releases her grip on his sleeve, turning around and sitting down heavily on her bed.

“I was already awake,” Dan Heng answers flatly, tucking his hands into his pockets. He at least was dressed like he intended to sleep, loose-fitting pants and black long-sleeved shirt a much more casual fit than his usual fare. Stelle had apparently passed out in her street clothes. She was tired, and still is.

“I can’t decide if that’s worse or not,” Stelle huffs, “Is anyone on this train getting sleep?” She tips backwards onto her mattress, or at least, she intends to–instead, she finds her path interrupted by an irregularly shaped but soft lump and a small squawk of alarm, and turns over to find that she’s landed on a pile of plush toys and pillows. “March,” Stelle sighs, “you didn’t have to bring the whole menagerie up here, I really could’ve just come downstairs.”

“You were on the floor when we came in!” March argues indignantly, arms crossed. She too was dressed for sleep, pink and blue tie-dyed shirt paired with equally pink shorts. “And we didn’t even come up right away, so how long would it have taken you to come down?”

“You told me to stay put,” Stelle quips, hauling herself up out of the stack of fleecy and fluffy toys, “so I did.” 

“Didn’t have to be so literal about it!” 

“What’s kept you awake so late?” Dan Heng asks, interrupting their banter. He ducks to one side as Stelle flings her grey jacket over her shoulder, and he watches it land lopsidedly on her chair. “Did you sleep at all?” 

“I had a nightmare,” Stelle answers, digging a pair of black-and-star–patterned pajama pants out of a drawer. “March didn’t mention it?”

“She said, ‘we gotta go hang out with Stelle, help me carry these!’ and filled my hands with animals before shoving me out the door.” 

“Yeah okay, that tracks,” Stelle mumbles, ignoring March’s indignant hey! as she pulls her skirt off and quickly tugs her pajamas on. “Promise that wasn’t judgment, just understanding.”

“ Uh huh,” is March’s dubious response, and Stelle turns in time to see the pink haired girl shaking her head as she places the stuffed animals around her bed in some kind of arcane circular arrangement only she understood. 

Dan Heng had turned away while she changed–always so polite, though Stelle didn’t really care one way or another–so she gently bumps her shoulder into his side as she passes, giving permission to look again before she waves her hands at March. “Where in the world do we go?” she asks, and March mimics her arm motion.

“In the middle, duh!” she says, as though it’s the most obvious thing in the world, then proceeds to vault over the line of plushes around the edge to land nearly in the center of the arrangement. Stelle gives her a little clap, and they both chuckle at Dan Heng’s bemused but fond sigh as March pats the large empty space in the middle of the bed. 

“Extremely funny how you’re inviting me into my bed in my room,” Stelle chuckles, carefully clambering over the stuffed animals and settling into the middle of the empty space, thumping her head back into the pillows with a sigh. She scoots a little closer to March and looks over at Dan Heng, who is hesitating at the edge of the bed. If Stelle didn’t know any better, he almost looks like he’s intimidated by the large plush Pom-Pom that’s currently staring back at him with its beady button eyes. 

She stares until he presumably feels her gaze boring into him and looks up to meet her eyes; Stelle pats the empty spot on the bed next to her. He glances down at her hand for a moment before his gaze returns to hers, and stares for a few moments longer before sighing and shaking his head. Stelle knows she sees an exhausted but fond smile on his face as he leans down to pick her blanket up off the ground, and March squawks when he unceremoniously tosses it over the two of them before carefully climbing past the giant Pom-Pom and settling in next to Stelle. 

March reaches over her head and grabs a smaller plushie, a little blue vaguely-cat-shaped thing, and turns onto her side to press it into Stelle’s middle until she obliges and wraps her arms around it. It’s soft, and smells faintly of berries. Satisfied, March tucks an arm under her head, her pleased smile softening into a look of gentle concern. “So… do you wanna talk about it, or did you wanna just try to sleep?” 

Stelle hums. She was tired, but she could still see flames behind her eyelids every time she shut her eyes. “Tell me why you guys are up, first, then I’ll tell you mine.”

“Ugh, fine,” March relents, rolling her eyes, but not without some of her usual mirth. It took Stelle a while to understand that she wasn’t being a nuisance when she asked for help, but she knows now that March was rarely ever genuinely upset with her. “I was up too late sorting through photos. I’ve been trying to get them all in some kind of reasonable order, and I lost track of time… And then I just couldn’t get to sleep. I got back up to get some tea from Shush and found Dan Heng was up too.” 

Dan Heng huffs a sigh, and Stelle can see him shake his head out of the corner of her eye. “I just couldn’t sleep,” he admits, “and not for lack of trying, either.” 

“Guess it’s just a bad night for sleep, then,” Stelle mutters, reaching over her head for another stuffed animal and sticking it into March’s arms, “hopefully it’s just the three of us that are cursed with restlessness.” 

“What has you up?” March echoes Dan Heng’s question, holding a fluffy white cloud of a rabbit plush against her chest, its head tucked under her chin as she watches Stelle closely.

Stelle sighs. “It… was a really nasty nightmare,” she begins, trying vainly to keep the gruesome images from rising up to the top of her mind again, “I was back in Amphoreus. The world was ending. I think… I think I was the Flame Reaver–I was Khaslana.” She pauses to take a breath, fingers stroking through the soft fluff of the plush in her hands, grateful to have something to ground her. “I didn’t realize it right away, until people started dying. I couldn’t stop myself. It was like I was a passenger, my hands moved on their own. Like it was a memory, instead of a dream.” 

Dan Heng’s shoulder presses carefully into hers, and she turns her head to look at him. He’s moved closer, though he’s still staring up at the ceiling. It’s a rare thing for the vidyadhara to come so close, and she cherishes the feeling of his warmth at her side. “It could be a memory,” he suggests, voice quiet, “even if not distinctly yours. You said you had witnessed some number of Khaslana’s recurrences, no?” He waits for Stelle to nod in confirmation before he continues, “Your ties to the Remembrance might have caused some of those memories to linger more vividly than normal.”

“You’d think Black Swan would have noticed if it was something like that,” Stelle grumbles, turning her gaze back to the light fixture on her ceiling. Planets in a system, glowing dimly in the half-darkness of her room. 

March moves closer, her knees bumping into Stelle’s leg. “Might not be the Remembrance, either,” March suggests, “sometimes bad memories just burn themselves into your brain and keep reminding you they’re there.”

“Trauma,” Dan Heng confirms bluntly, and Stelle’s face twists into a grimace–not really the word she wanted to think about, but it was likely the word he was most familiar with.

“Yippee, my favorite,” she sighs, trying not to linger on it too much. The images still drift across her mind, and her grip on the plush in her arms tightens. “The memory fell apart at the end, I think. It started out as his, and…turned into one of mine, instead.” March’s hand finds her arm, gently stroking up and down. The motion was comforting, and Stelle took a deep shuddering breath. “He came to fight me. I–I don’t know which cycle it was, but Phainon was coming after the Reaver. He.... He lost, and I had to watch him die, through Khaslana’s eyes. It broke from here, I-I think there just wasn’t any memory left from him after that, Phainon got his wings, a-and then he suddenly looked like he was dying, like when Irontomb…” Stelle runs out of breath, and stops to gulp for air past the sob building in her throat. Something brushes her cheek–Dan Heng dabbing at the streak of tears that escaped her eyes without her realizing. It makes her want to cry more. “I couldn’t do anything for him. He was begging me to end it, but I was frozen there, even though everything was burning.” 

March’s arm stretches across Stelle’s middle and she pulls herself close, pressing her forehead against the side of Stelle’s shoulder in a tight hug. Dan Heng had turned over onto his side, and his gentle hand came to rest on her shoulder. A tiny sob escapes Stelle’s throat, breaking their brief silence, and her arm shoots up to cover her eyes, nearly clocking March in the chin. She mutters an apology, willing herself to contain her tears. This sucks.

“We did what we could in the circumstances we were given,” Dan Heng says carefully, his voice low, “and so did he. And we all know you, especially, did your absolute best.”

“Did I?” 

“You did,” March insists from her other side, tucking herself in further now that Stelle’s arm has moved, “Maybe you didn’t bear that weight for as long as he did, but you still did it. I don’t know if any of the rest of us could have.” 

Stelle sniffles loudly, and lets her arm drop from her face and flop above her head. “I don’t know. You guys are pretty fucking cool. Dan Heng, if you keep doing that, I’m just gonna cry more.”

The corner of Dan Heng’s mouth twitches up in one of his trademark minuscule smiles, and he dabs at her cheek again regardless before turning to lie on his back once more. Stelle lowers her arm, opting to loop it around March’s shoulders instead. Dan Heng pulls the blanket up further over the three of them.

“I still think he picked right,” March mutters before being interrupted by a yawn, “You–I think you’re the only person that could’a done it.”

“Really think so?”
“Well, you’re the only other person with a star tucked in next to your heart.”

Stelle sniffles again. “That was really sappy.” 

March sleepily baps at her with the plush in her hands before tucking back into her side. “Yeah well. It’s true.” 

Dan Heng exhales in a way that Stelle recognizes as amused, and she chuckles too. He taps a knuckle against her arm under the blanket. “You should try to get some rest,” he whispers, “tomorrow’s just a travel day. We can sleep in.” 

“Mmkay,” Stelle mumbles, taking another breath. She glances down–March is fully unconscious at her side, breaths soft and even. She glances up at Dan Heng, and he briefly meets her gaze before offering her another tiny smile, his eyes squinting just the slightest bit as he presses his shoulder against hers again. Sandwiched comfortably between two of the people she cares about the most in the entire cosmos, a yawn finally finds her. 

Maybe here, the nightmares won’t find her again.

Chapter Text

Entry 10

I don’t think I want to write that last nightmare down. It’s vivid enough in my mind already, and I don’t want it to stick around. March and Dan Heng slept over, they couldn’t get any rest either. Not super clear if they’re having nightmares too, but the end result is the same either way.

Turns out everything’s easier with a little help. Including hauling a dozen or so plushes and pillows down a spiral staircase in the morning. Sunday, early riser that he is, raised an eyebrow at our weird little procession, but March stuck her tongue out at him so he chose not to comment. I think he’s jealous. Better drag him into the next sleepover just to be sure.

Black Swan showed up at March’s door while we were trying to fix all the plushies on her bed, holding yet another one we must have dropped in the party car on the way down. She asked if we could talk, said she could tell we were troubled. Seeing as memories are kind of her whole deal, we told her everything over breakfast. After briefly calling Sunday over for a second opinion, she decided that while there were still some lingering effects from Amphoreus’ fucked up brand of memoria, most of our troubles were… more internal than physiological. She promised to help with the latter and advise on the former. Apparently she’d always intended to, but after everything we dealt with, she’d been hesitant to offer. Wasn’t sure if we were sick of memokeepers by now. I told her I knew she’d only ever meant well, and whatever happened in Amphoreus hadn’t been her fault. She laughed when I told her she was the reason the cosmos hadn’t cracked in half yet, but she shook her head and said the cosmos would remember who the true heroes are.

//////

Entry 15

Today was kind of a weird one.

I haven’t had a nightmare in a little while. I saw the shooting star again instead, still out of reach, leaving behind its trail of gold. 

Black Swan approached me today and asked if I had some spare time to talk. She asked if I was willing to let her create light cones from my memories. While the Garden of Recollection had already done their part to preserve as much of Amphoreus as they could, to Black Swan, memories collected from a person who can still carry and cherish those memories are more precious than any gold. 

I asked her if I had to relive them while she collected them. She said it was easier that way, but that I didn’t have to. Due to my brief tie to Fuli, my memories of Amphoreus and its people were almost crystal clear to her. Maybe that’s why the nightmares came so vividly. She also said that if she pulled any one in particular that I’d prefer to stay private, she wouldn’t add it to the Garden’s collection. I appreciated that.

The process felt like it took a bit longer than it really did. Sinking into your memories really affects your perception of time, I guess. Sometimes it felt like I was playing those memories on fast-forward, images flashing behind my eyelids faster than I could register what they were. Others lingered a while, and I could almost reach out and grasp at the people and places before me–but I let the memory slip by, the images falling into Black Swan’s gentle hand. I think I cried a little bit, but ironically, I don’t really remember. Her voice was soothing as always, profuse with gratitude; her starry eyes not looking at me with pity, but with sympathy. I appreciated that too. I know she’s experienced loss too.

She promised she’d give me something in return, though she wouldn’t answer what it was when I asked. Only that it was some kind of collaborative project. I have no idea what she means by that. Guess I’ll just have to wait and see. 

//////

Entry 31

Black Swan left the Express today. She'd finished monitoring Dan Heng, March and I for lingering physiological effects of extended memoria exposure, and declared us fit and healthy. Physically, of course. As she'd mentioned to us before, hearts would take a little longer to mend. She told us she had full confidence in us though, and that she thought we'd be just fine.

Before she took her leave, she gave each of us a card she plucked from her deck and asked us to keep them safe. March’s depicted a deep purple ocean with bright moonbeams cutting through the dark, illuminating a bright jellyfish with a flower within its bell; Dan Heng’s, a dragon nestled between pillars of stone and earth, its head at rest upon its great claws, the night sky dark over its sleeping form; mine, a black starry sky with a shower of stars through it, with a pair of golden stars claiming most of the center of the card. All three of them were inscribed with a single sentence along the edge of the card: “May this memory guide you back home.”

Cryptic as she often is, she didn't explain what the cards were for. She just gave her usual mysterious smile and said we'd know when the time came. Knowing her, these are definitely light cones of some kind, but I can't seem to tap into what might be stored in it yet. It's weird, but this one reminds me of the dreams I've been having... Did she see those dreams in my memories too? I think I'll mark my journal pages with it. 

Dan Heng told me later that Black Swan had asked him for memories, and March confirmed the same. I wonder if that's what Black Swan had meant about it being a collaborative project... Who did she go to first? I guess that isn't important. March can't seem to suss out what's contained in the cards either.

//////

Days and weeks pass, and the journal fills, enough that Stelle sheepishly asks Dan Heng for another one. When he doesn’t find a spare, Himeko appears shortly after with a brand new one she procured from somewhere, clearly bought just for this reason–the cover was black with yellow accents, offered with her usual warm smile. 

Before putting the first journal away on the shelf, Stelle sat in her darkened room and read the entries by starlight as they passed by a binary system. The weight in her chest was lighter, now, after transferring so much of it to paper. Black Swan’s card was set carefully on the nightstand next to her bed, always making sure not to bend or scratch the gilded surface.

Something flashes in the corner of her eye, and she looks out to see the distant shine of a shooting star, zipping past a twinned star system. It seems almost impossibly fast for how far away it is, but the train’s moving in the opposite direction, so maybe it’s altering her perception. It leaves a brilliant golden trail behind it, and she feels a pang of nostalgia when she sees it. Maybe I’ll catch the next one I dream about. Nonetheless, Stelle watches the pinprick of light until it races past the edge of her window and out of sight, then picks up her new journal. 

Entry 67

Hello, new journal, kindly bequeathed by Miss Himeko. Guess who finally got to go to Washtopia today? And no giant bugs this time!! We did run into some Masked fools though, and that was kind of a trip…

//////

Entry 84

I saw a shooting star again this morning. Welt says they’re really rare to see from the Express because of how fast the train is moving–it’s not often that something moves faster than the silver rail. Dan Heng thinks it might be another ship, but that’s still unlikely, also for faster-than-the-Express reasons. 

Speaking of fast, we stopped at Taikiyan! And here I’d thought Penacony’s race event was fast paced, Roboball is really something else…

//////

Entry 87

We stopped for supplies at an IPC spaceport today. They had a store with these little fluffy creatures that looked so, so much like chimeras, it took everything in me not to bring another pet onto the train. The trashcake and Bubbles the Trotter are already enough of a handful, but I miss Bubbles the chimera, too. Oh Bubbles, my Bubbles…

We never did figure out why that funny little seal was sitting in that pond in Aedes Elysiae. Phainon and Cyrene would heckle it whenever it made its odd demands, but then indulge it anyway. It would have been nice to stay there a little bit longer, but of course Lygus was only going to leave me there long enough for it to hurt when he pulled me out.

I don’t know what kind of person is compelled to shove people and worlds closer to destruction. It feels cruel, to watch everything catch fire and burn, over and over, for the sake of such science. Not even Madam Herta, a literal emanator, would indulge in something so depraved just for the sake of scientific results. Billions of years of watching someone burn themself to ashes from sheer blazing determination. I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine watching someone hurt so badly, and feel nothing but glee. 

This entry took a turn. Maybe I’ll count chimeras and see if that helps with sleep.

Entry 88

So one of those little cat things snuck onto the train. It’s a little red thing, with curly white horns and a pointy spade tail, horribly, tremendously cute. It’s pretty attached to March, so it’s her problem now! 

I am definitely going to spoil that thing. Let’s see how long it takes Pom-pom to notice it’s here…

I had another nightmare last night, it’s been a long while since the previous one. I was running, somewhere dark, a dozen people running with me, a rainbow of color at my sides as a distant blaze chased us down. Their footsteps dwindled as the crackle of flames grew louder and louder, until eventually, there were only two of us left. I tried to reach back, to help him keep running, but eventually, he stopped too, along with the blaze. I kept running until I woke up. 

//////

Entry 92

I had another shooting star dream last night. It’s weird how often they keep happening, it feels like it’s at least once a week. The star was closer this time, it felt like its wake was brushing my fingers. For a moment I was worried it would burn, but it was just warm, like sunlight. 

I should ask the conductor if we could stop somewhere with a nice sunset and ocean view. I think it’d be nice. This last stop was so cold and dry, it almost put Jarilo VI to shame…

Entry 93

Pom-pom has discovered Cherry Tart the definitely-not-a-chimera and made us send the credits back for it, which is fair. Our wallets are a bit lighter now, but at least we got to keep him. He, shockingly, seems to be content to subsist entirely on Himeko’s coffee? I’m not sure how good that is for him, but at least we have a reliable way to get rid of it now…

//////

Entry 97

We got a message from Aventurine, we’re being invited to some kind of event at Penacony in a few months. Looks like they’re still putting the whole thing together, but it’s some kind of musical tribute event? As long as it doesn’t go completely pear shaped like the Charmony Festival did, though, I’m sure it’ll be fine. Would be fantastic if we didn’t have anyone else trying to summon another Aeon… Though Robin’s apparently in charge of this one, and she’ll definitely be trying to avoid something like that. He sent us a whole document full of information, since we get to have at least some advance warning, what with the whole shareholder thing. I’ll have to ask Himeko for it later.

I had another star dream last night. Well, it was one star that suddenly shattered into a whole rain of shooting stars. It was beautiful to watch them fall around me, but somehow, I still couldn’t seem to catch any of them. 

//////

Welcome to a new episode of the Interastral Peace Broadcast! We are here to bring you the latest news from across the galaxy. 

The planet Xin-41 has re-established contact with the cosmos after an industrial disaster covered the planet in smoke. IPC-provided atmospheric cleansing technology has averted most of the disaster and minimized loss of life. Trade routes are to be re-established shortly.

The Antimatter Legion’s assault on the IPC planet Oceton has been successfully repelled. While the situation seemed dire, what appears to have been a catastrophic malfunction caused several of the Legion’s warships to self-destruct, severely hampering their firepower and causing the Lord Ravager Celenova to retreat. It is unclear what caused the malfunction, or if it was instead an act of sabotage. The IPC has since lost track of the fleet due to a massive EMP, suspected to be caused by the warships’ explosion.

The Family is proud to present a brand new attraction in the dreamland of Penacony– Memories of Song! Visitors are encouraged to attend this grand performance, where the musical history of Penacony takes central stage, starring Penacony’s own intergalactic sweetheart, Robin! Please stay tuned for more details…

//////

Entry 113

Welt asked me about him today. I was wondering if he ever would. When I first mentioned the name “Khaslana” after coming back from Amphoreus, he went so pale I thought he would faint. 

He asked so carefully when he approached me in the party car, like he was worried about reopening a wound. He explained to me that in his world, he’d known a Kaslana too, and having met people here that held up mirrors to his past, he wanted to know if this was another example of one he’d just narrowly missed meeting. 

It doesn’t hurt as much to think about anymore, so I told him everything. He knew the broad strokes of our journey through the world in the scepter, but he was asking about him , so I focused in—on his heroic exploits, on his fight against a cruel fate, on his victory over the destruction, but most importantly, on his acts of sheer kindness and self sacrifice. On the Phainon we came to know. Dan Heng heard us as he passed by, and sat down with his tea to listen and add to the story. March joined in eventually too. We nearly spilled our drinks with how enthusiastic the storytelling got, a far cry from the quiet retelling we gave the crew when we finally returned. I even caught Sunday and Tingyun stealing glances from their usual spots in the party car, listening intently to the grand epic we haphazardly wove there. 

Welt sat and gave us his undivided attention, hanging off our every word and asking very few questions, a wistfulness in his smile. I get the feeling our Khaslana did better than his. It didn’t feel right to ask. 

//////

Travel days always feel longer than normal when you’re out of chores. The parlor car had already been left spotless by Pom-Pom yesterday, and the party car had been swept out by Sunday and March the day before—easy work, as Shush keeps the bar area impeccable on a daily basis. Stelle has rearranged all the knickknacks in her room twice now in an attempt to keep her mind busy, and was contemplating a third before she gave up and sought entertainment elsewhere. 

It’s not a rare thing for music to reach her ears as she leaves her room—Sunday spends more time in the party car than he does in his own room, and much of that time is spent playing the piano Himeko snuck onto the train for him. What is unusual is the style of music he’s playing today, a slightly familiar, swaying and lilting thing that almost seems to dance through the air. She sees sheet music laid out in front of him as she descends the spiral staircase from her room, and familiarity becomes recognition when the song picks up tempo: it was Xianzhou music. 

For a moment, Stelle wonders why the change of pace. Sunday was a creature of habit and normally stuck to pieces he was familiar with, though he’s getting better about breaking from routine more and more often. Her question is swiftly answered when she spots one of their passengers in the open space at the end of the bar: Tingyun is swaying in time with the music, the gilded fans in her hands carving a hypnotic spiral through the air, pink tail following her lead as she spins. The delicate golden embroidery on her hanfu glimmers in the light as she turns, and Stelle catches herself staring from the bottom of the staircase. Shaking off the embarrassment—it doesn’t seem like anyone saw her standing awkwardly one step short of the landing—she takes a seat at the bar and asks the robotic bartender for a soda before turning to watch the dance again.

As she watches, Stelle remembers their next destination is where Tingyun intends to part ways with the Express, and she leans her head into her hand with a sigh. Her presence on the train had been a welcome one, and she was going to miss the foxian when she was gone. 

The music ends as Tingyun poses with a flourish, fans held aloft and her dense pink tail split into nine smaller ones that fanned out behind her. Stelle claps, and Tingyun blinks out of her reverie at the sound, bringing one of her fans up to her face to hide her laugh before bowing deeply, and merging her tails back into one. “I didn’t realize we had an audience,” she chuckles, snapping the fan closed with a flick of her wrist as she glanced towards a sheepish-looking Sunday. 

“I didn’t want to interrupt,” Stelle explains, grinning, “it was really beautiful, you move so gracefully.”

“Years of practice,” she beams, tufted ears perking up at the praise, “though it wasn’t required for my line of work, it’s an art form I deeply appreciate. It helps put both my mind and body at ease.” 

“That sounds nice,” Stelle thinks aloud as she leans her head in her hand again, “dancing is fun, though I’ve only ever done the improvisational, move-how-you-wanna kind.” Clockie wasn’t exactly the most refined dance partner, even if he was a very fun one.

“A large part of dance is the feeling,” Tingyun says, eyes squinting up in a smile. She lifts her second, still-open fan, and gently spins it through the air as she continues, “if you have feeling, and you have rhythm, learning any dance becomes very easy.” The fan stops in front of her face, but Stelle can tell there is a grin behind it by the squint in her eyes. “Did you want to learn?” 

“Oh, I will mess it up,” Stelle laughs, “I can’t remember if it was Dan Heng or March who said I don’t have a single graceful bone in my body.” 

“Nonsense,” Tingyun chirps, holding her closed fan out to Stelle, who grasps it carefully. “I’m sure you’ll do just fine.”

Stelle slides out of the barstool and stares down at the fan in her hand before flicking her wrist out in the same motion she’d seen Tingyun use. It opens with a satisfying snap, and she admires the looping golden embellishments on the red and white fabric. “I am going to try,” she begins, holding the fan in front of her face into mirror Tingyun, “very very hard… not to break this.” 

Tingyun laughs and waves her hand in dismissal of Stelle’s worries. Instead, she turns to the halovian still sitting at the piano and asks, “Mr. Sunday, could I trouble you to play another?” 

He shakes his head. “It’s no trouble at all,” he answers, smiling, and shuffles away one set of sheet music in favor of another piece. 

Tingyun beckons Stelle out into the open space she was dancing in earlier, and lifts her fan, alighting at her starting pose. Stelle mirrors her—the motion isn’t quite as smooth, but she reaches the pose nonetheless. “Now,” Tingyun says, her eyes still squinting with a smile as Sunday begins to play again, “follow my lead.” 

...

It didn’t take Stelle long to understand why Tingyun found this dance meditative. Though she was clumsy at the start, she soon fell into the rhythm, and the two of them slowly twirled back and forth across the party car once Stelle figured out exactly how to place her feet. When the song ended, Shush, and even Sunday, offered a round of applause. Stelle could have sworn she saw Dan Heng watching from somewhere across the bar, but when the dance ended, he was nowhere to be found. Sunday excused himself shortly afterward, citing the late hour, collecting the sheet music and thanking Tingyun for the new material.

Stelle and Tingyun now sit at the bar by themselves, Stelle retrieving her abandoned soda while Tingyun waits for Shush to brew her some tea. 

“Pardon me if I’m assuming,” Tingyun begins, still smiling, “but it seems to me like you enjoyed yourself, benefactor.” 

“I did,” Stelle affirms, taking a sip of her cool drink before continuing, “it was fun to learn, and a heck of a workout. I’m just glad I didn’t trip all over the place, guess it really is all in the footwork.”

Tingyun chuckles. “That does make dancing much easier.” She thanks Shush as they slide a cup of green tea towards her, and turns in her seat to face Stelle before continuing. “You are a fighter, along with most of your crew. It’s not uncommon that those with martial prowess, especially swordsmen—“ a grin, “—or baseballers, have a trained awareness of their own limbs and how they should move. I never learned to fight with a weapon the way Cloud Knights do, but I’ve seen them do their work, and it’s really just a deadly form of dance.”  

“That makes sense,” Stelle hums. She’s been through enough training drills with Dan Heng to last her a lifetime—they know each other’s fighting styles so well, she supposes she could call that a dance too. She finds herself missing her sparring partners from Amphoreus. Fighting them felt like a dance, too.

Tingyun stirs something into her tea—briefly in the throes of memory, Stelle didn’t catch what it was. “It took a while to reacquaint myself with my body again,” she muses, gazing past the wall of glasses and bottles behind the bar, “Ruan Mei encouraged me to take up dance again, even through the pain. To use it as a form of physical and mental therapy. I wasn’t so sure, at first, but of course, a Genius like her usually knows what she’s talking about.” 

Stelle nods, nursing her drink as she too sank into thought. Tingyun had been truly innocent when chance placed her in the hands of her tormenter, made her a mere pawn in a Lord Ravager’s scheme. Stelle was getting sick of so-called higher powers using countless lives like pieces in a chessboard. She looks up to see Tingyun sipping her tea, her hair slipping back from her shoulder to reveal the golden flower marked over her skin—a question suddenly occurs to her, and leaves her mouth before she can rethink it. “What does it feel like to you?” 

“Hmm?”

“The destruction. Ehm—“ Stelle awkwardly averts her eyes, realizing how personal a question that is, lifting her glass to her mouth but not quite taking the drink yet, “you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to.” 

Tingyun hums again, though her expression betrays no upset, if she felt any. An ear twitches as she thinks, her eyes tracking her own perfectly manicured finger as it traces the edge of her teacup. “On the worst days, it feels like burning,” she answers quietly, “like my blood is set ablaze. It doesn’t feel that way so often anymore, not after I took back ownership of my body.” She picks up the teacup and holds it in both hands, but doesn’t drink, merely savoring its warmth in her hands. “On days like today, the sensation is easier to ignore. Keeping the mind and body busy helps. It’s why, when I have nothing else to do, I choose to dance.” 

Stelle nods again and takes a sip of her drink, unsure how else to respond despite having been the one to ask the question. The soda had been abandoned just long enough that it was starting to go flat. Ah well, can’t waste it. “You’re very strong, Miss Tingyun,” is ultimately what she settles on, hoping her sincerity comes across despite the plain statement. 

The foxian chuckles, a hand lifting to cover her mouth. “It doesn’t always feel that way,” she admits.

“That you’re still here is proof enough, I think,” Stelle murmurs, staring down at her drink. She jumps a little when Tingyun’s hand gently finds her arm.

“What about you, ‘Miss Stellaron?’” Tingyun asks, a teasing lilt to the title, tail waving behind her. Stelle is glad Tingyun wasn’t upset by her question, but she’s still not sure how to feel about the nickname despite how many people use it. “What does your brand feel like?” 

The Nameless sets down her drink and ponders the question. She knows exactly how it feels, but how to explain? “Fire seems to be a common trend,” she begins, chuckling a bit. “Though, unlike yours, mine is… concentrated, I guess.” Her hand lifts to her chest, coming to rest over the mostly-hidden scar the stellaron sits under. The wishing star, The seed of disaster, The Cancer of All Worlds, crammed into her body next to her heart. “It’s quiet, most of the time. Sometimes I even forget it’s there. Then something happens, or I feel something too strongly, and it’s like someone poured fuel onto the embers of a bonfire–it blazes so brightly, it’s hard to put out. But it’s always centered right here." She taps her chest once before her hand finds the glass again. “Sometimes, in a fight, the adrenaline feels like fire too, but it doesn’t… burn, so much as it fuels.” 

Tingyun watches her intently over the rim of her teacup, her gaze suddenly unreadable. “Do you know how it felt for your friend?” she asks after a moment, and the question catches Stelle off guard. She doesn’t have to clarify which friend she means. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

Can she answer that? How could she quantify the destruction that had been forced on him? Stelle shakes her head. “If… if the stellaron is like a star, he carried millions in his chest,” she murmurs, tapping her finger on her glass. “Towards the end, he would have said all those millions burned with fury and hate, but I don’t think I believe that. Maybe that was true at some point, but…” her ramble drifts into silence, and she takes a deep breath as that same ember begins to flare in her own chest. 

“But?”

“But… I believe that blaze started and ended with a deep love for the world. A hope for a better future. He was willing to burn so the sun could finally rise.” Stelle sniffs, blinking away the beginnings of tears. “I don’t think someone who only felt hate would make that choice in the end. He was just further proof to me–that, as steeped in Destruction as we are, we can always choose not to walk that path.”

Tingyun is quiet for a few moments, then sets her teacup down with a gentle smile. Her hand finds Stelle’s, and pats it gently. “You’re very strong yourself, Miss Stelle. Thank you for indulging me. I know those memories don’t treat you kindly.” 

Stelle offers her a tired smile, and finally sets down her glass of flat soda. “The good memories are worth wading through the bad ones sometimes.” 

//////

Entry 120

Miss Tingyun departed the Express today. Her smile was genuine as she bid her farewells, grateful that we offered her hospitality for so long. We told her it was the least we could do for a friend in need, but she still insisted on leaving behind tons of gifts for us before disembarking–among which, she left me a set of black and gold fans, in case I ever wanted to practice more. 

I wish I had spoken with her more before she left, but my conversation with her yesterday helped me feel a little less alone in the cosmos. It’s not every day you find someone who rejects their brand of destruction with everything they have, and lives to tell the tale. To fight another day. We’ll get to speak again someday though. I know this isn’t goodbye. 

Entry 121

Dreamt about the shooting star again. I’ve lost track of how many times it’s passed me by. I almost caught it by the tail this time, but it danced away from my hands. I swear I heard it laughi෴

Today I learned the train has a proximity alert system. The sound of the alarm hit before the light did, something blasting past the train opposite our direction of travel, between us and the system we were passing. While it hadn’t passed directly adjacent to us, the light it gave off was so bright that it still felt like it was a bit too close for comfort.The Conductor was in a panic when I ran downstairs, and the rest of the Nameless were scrambling up and down the train cars to check for damage, but nothing was on fire, so it seems like whatever it was hadn’t hit us. It did make the lights on the train flicker, though, and a few of the systems had to be reset…

We convened in the party car afterward and Himeko confirmed there was no damage to the Express or its functions, nor to any of the nearby star systems, much to the crew’s collective relief. Whatever passed us by wasn’t large, but the energy signature had been impossibly strong. While she wasn’t sure if it was a ship, a weapon, or some other kind of interstellar phenomena, it had been moving with purpose—Himeko revealed that it had initially been on a collision course with the Express before intentionally veering off its path to avoid us, which is why the alarm had gone off in the first place. She’s still analyzing the readings, but she promised she would share more information as it became apparent.

I remember what Welt had said about shooting stars being hard to see while the Express is moving, since the train itself is akin to a shooting star in its own right. I wonder if this is the same star I saw that night. Maybe it’s silly to wonder that—the cosmos is an impossibly huge place, after all. 

Stelle sets down her pen and sighs, rubbing her eyes with the heel of her hand as she tucks the star card back into her journal to mark her place. Thanks to the passing of the mysterious light, the whole crew had lost out on sleep as they made sure the train was still running in perfect order. Himeko, Welt, and Dan Heng had sequestered themselves into the navigation room last she heard, wanting to analyze the data the train’s sensors may have collected during the incident, but it’s been a few hours with no news, so it’ll probably come in the morning. 

With a thump and another loud sigh, she falls face-forward into bed before dragging herself up to get her face in her pillows. Stelle knows she’s tired, but she has a feeling sleep is going to elude her today. With another thump and a grunt, she rolls over onto her back, staring up at the planetary system of lights that hangs above her bed. Lifting her hand, she traces a line across that simulated sky, imitating the path of a shooting star, dodging planets and suns as it goes. Her pointer finger stops at one of those round stars, then her hand opens as if to grasp it down from the ceiling. She sighs, and her hand drops back to her side. Sleep is definitely not coming to her any time soon. No use lying here if I’m not sleepy. Hauling herself out of bed once more, she quietly slips out of her room to go sit in the party car again. 

Stelle quickly notes she isn’t the only one losing sleep as the quiet notes of a piano drift up the spiral staircase to her room. Surely enough, Sunday is there, quietly plinking away near the window, wings pressed back against his head in what she has since learned is a sign of stress. She allows her steps to fall heavily on the stairs–if only to avoid startling the poor man on her way down–and surely enough, his wings perk up somewhat before he briefly glances back towards her, giving her a small smile of acknowledgement as he turns back to his music. The presence of another human in the car must have lifted some of his anxiety, his playing picking up some energy as Stelle approaches and sits in one of the booths nearby. 

Shush, for once understanding that the crew needs a bit of quiet tonight, sets a cup of warm tea down in front of Stelle with little fanfare. “Good for calming some nerves after that, ah, alarming experience,” they chirp quietly, chuckling at their own joke before ducking back behind the bar to clean some glasses. She takes a sip and smiles. Pomegranate tea is nice, she thinks, realizing it’s been a while since she’s had a taste of that particular fruit. Stelle wonders what planet Shush even sources those from, but she’s glad to know it exists out here too. Would it taste as good with milk as the juice does? Maybe she’ll try that next time.

With the warm cup in her hands and Sunday’s melodies drifting into her ears, she stares out the giant windows of the party car once again. The stars move at their usual speed now. Stelle watches them drift by absently, letting her thoughts drift along with them. She thinks about Amphoreus again, and how the sky there was denied the sight of stars–only the inky darkness of the scepter’s corruption, or the golden light of the Dawn Device serving as backdrops to their grand adventure, and grand torment. 

She hadn’t realized how much she would miss stars until a few days into their stay in Okhema, the fourth day in a row of her and Dan Heng going to bed and waking up with the sunlight perpetually in their eyes. The Nameless make their home between the stars, after all, and being unable to even reach for them sometimes left a pit of unease in her stomach. Her thoughts turn to the one place she had been able to find solace–the companions they met along the way, the brilliant stars that lit up the darkness.

She remembers the ladies Tribios, with their boundless energy and compassion, a set of shooting stars on their own. 

She remembers the great sage Anaxagoras, who would have torn down the sky on his own using mere words if given the chance to.

She remembers the healer Hyacinthia, who with a brilliant smile and an even more brilliant heart, held up the firmament of the heavens through sheer will. 

She remembers the thief Cifera, whose greatest lie proved to be the world’s saving grace, who ran towards her fate instead of away from it, and faced it with a defiant grin. 

She remembers the noble Aglaea, who pulled at her own thread of life until she was fully unwound, if only to cast a net of safety over the hopes of the world. 

She remembers the gentle Castorice, in whose hands she had gently cradled her soul, and in whose hands the tired find rest.

She remembers the empress Cerydra, whose final gambit ensured them the ultimate victory, even at the cost of herself.

She remembers the swordswoman Helektra, whose singing blade bought them time again and again, against that dark tide.

She remembers the last prince Mydeimos, who fought and bled and died for the world, over and over again, if only to spare others that same pain. 

She remembers the diviner Cyrene, who willingly walked to her end again, and again, dooming herself to deny evil their victory.

She remembers the hero Phainon, who glowed with the light of the sun to the very end, and even while burning with the fires of an eternity of pain, did not let the fires of hate consume the last thing he had left.

Fire wells up in her chest as she turns the memories over again in her mind. That world, no matter how real some may argue it was or wasn't, deserved a kinder fate than what it got. Those heroes that persisted despite destruction running through their veins had earned their happy ending, and not even she could deny their cruel author’s whims–

Her unfocused gaze suddenly snaps back into reality, her hands relaxing from the fists she hadn’t realized she had formed. 

Sunday was still playing, though he had changed songs now–for once, not one of Robin’s. His hands dance along the keys and thrum out an energetic but melancholy tune. It takes a moment before Stelle realizes he’s watching her out of the corner of his eye, and the pinkblueyellow glow of the harmony’s tuning fades from the edges of her vision. His eyes soften with sympathy, and he glances up and past her for a moment before turning back to the piano. 

Stelle suddenly realizes there is a hand on her shoulder. Her gaze snaps up to the new arrival, meeting Dan Heng's storm-green stare. 

“Are you alright?” he asks, eyebrows furrowed in concern as he draws his hand away. Stelle rubs at her eyes, finding her cheeks wet with tears, and lets out a shaky sigh. 

“Sorry,” she grumbles, sliding across the booth to leave a space on the seat–a silent invitation Dan Heng accepts. “I was thinking too much, I think.” She glances back up at Sunday, who at first seems focused on his music, but his wings were up and alert–it’s funny how much they give away now that she knows how to read them. It’s a bit embarrassing to need someone else to psychically knock her out of what was probably the start of some kind of emotional breakdown, but Stelle supposes it was better than having someone walk in on her sobbing into her tea, or having a bucket of ice water dumped on her or something. She’ll have to thank Sunday later somehow.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Dan Heng asks, setting a small stack of pages down on the table before leaning into it on his elbows. The furrow in his brow softens, but the worry in his gaze is still there. There are dark circles under his eyes. She figures hers look about the same.

“I don’t know,” Stelle answers honestly, “at least, I don’t know what else there is to talk about.” She thumps into the backrest of the booth with a huff, running a hand up through her bangs to unstick them from her face. “Do you ever just think about something that makes you angry for so long that it makes you want to blow up.” 

Dan Heng exhales through his nose, the corner of his mouth almost lifting in a smile. “Sometimes,” he admits, “though, more often, it’s less like ‘blowing up’ and more like drowning.” 

“People handle their big feelings differently, I guess.” 

Dan Heng hums in assent. They’ve had this conversation before.

Stelle heaves a heavy sigh and leans forward to prop her chin in her hand, staring out the window once again. “Do you think he’s out there, somewhere?”

“Hmm?”

“The real Khaslana. Our Phainon.” 

Dan Heng follows her gaze out towards the stars, humming quietly in contemplation as one of his hands drifts down to the pages on the table. “It’s not impossible,” he says, “when Irontomb was destroyed and the scepter decommissioned, the Express picked up a powerful spike of path energy shortly afterward, and the timing lined up with his final attempt at escape.”

“I remember.”

“Then you’ll want to see this.”

Stelle pulls her gaze away from the window once again, looking down and only just processing the pages Dan Heng had brought with him. She shoots him a questioning look and tucks into his side, eyeing the pages with curiosity as the vidyadhara starts flipping through them with one hand. He indulges her desire for contact by resting his arm on the back of the seat and leaving her room to stay close.

“Miss Himeko, Mr. Yang and myself finished analyzing the data the Express recorded from our near miss earlier,” he explains. The graphs and charts on the page are beyond Stelle’s comprehension, so she allows him to continue. “While we don’t know the exact identity of the entity that passed us by, we made a few noteworthy observations and have come up with a plausible conclusion: first, like Miss Himeko mentioned earlier, that the near miss was unintentional–it changed directions with just enough time to avoid the collision, possibly moving the moment it noticed us.” He taps a finger on an image of a stellar map depicting the trajectory of their startling visitor, the line moving directly towards the express before sharply veering away from an imminent collision. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t trying to scare us on purpose, we simply entered each others’ paths of travel. Along with this, it didn’t transmit any signals that an interstellar vessel or weapon would give off, so it was neither a vehicle, nor a machine.”

“Okay,” Stelle says carefully, pressing down that small flame that was starting to grow in her chest once again, “so our near miss was a living thing.” 

“Exactly. The second observation–” he pauses as he flips through the stack again, taking out two separate pages, with what seemed to be nearly identical graphs. 

Stelle provides him an extra hand to help flatten out the pages. “Why do you have these on paper?”

“Never mind that,” Dan Heng huffs, then continues, “The second observation we made was that there was a massive release of path energy as it changed directions.” He taps his finger on the graphs, where three of the many sets of points and lines suddenly jump up near the top edge of the image together. “Specifically, the paths of Remembrance, and Destruction–but also, notably, the Trailblaze.” 

Stelle stares at the nearly twinned pages in front of them, eyes widening in realization when she spots the dates at the top of each one. Her gaze snaps back up to Dan Heng’s face, waiting for him to finish his explanation, but she already knows what he’s going to say. The ember in her chest kindles into a roaring flame. “Dan Heng,” she says, her voice almost catching in her throat, “are you saying the readings are similar enough to…?”

Dan Heng nods, and his eyes squint into one of his rare smiles. “I’m saying they’re exactly the same.”

Chapter Text

Entry 122

After everyone managed to get some sleep, we went over the data together. Himeko explained about the same thing Dan Heng did, and March nearly leapt out of her seat in excitement. Poor Cherry Tart almost got launched across the room. As it was, he landed right on Pompom’s hat, and neither of them were happy about that.

Himeko also said that our sensors aren’t quite strong enough to pick up signals from large distances away without focusing on one spot at a time, so it’s going to be hard to catch that signal again unless it comes within our visual radius anyway, but now that we’ve got two matching signals, all we need is a third to make a pattern. Then we’ll know for sure.

I asked Dan Heng later why he showed up with all those graphs printed out on paper that night instead of just bringing a handheld screen around, and he hemmed and hawed for a bit until finally fessing up that it was easier to keep them handy while he tried to cross-reference them with other information from the Database. Turns out he’s been trying to check all our historical data to see if he can track the signal backwards. March gave him loads of crap over continuing to pretend he isn’t a huge softie.

We can’t quite detour everything just to try and track him down, if it is him, but it’s nice to have that shred of hope again.

//////

Welcome to a new episode of the Interastral Peace Broadcast! We are here to bring you the latest news from across the galaxy. 

All recoverable information from the Baranza Forge has been successfully salvaged by the IPC and the Garden of Recollection. With the neutralization of the Lord Ravager Irontomb, the manufacturing of Synesthesia Beacons will resume very soon.

The Galaxy Ranger responsible for the destruction of a factory in New Londinium is still at large, and considered highly dangerous. The bounty on the outlaw Boothill has been raised to 1.5 million credits. If you have any information on the whereabouts of this criminal, please contact the IPC immediately.

An Antimatter Legion force bound for the Xianzhou Fanghu has been driven off with the use of an interplanetary weapon. The Xianzhou Fanghu claims they are not responsible for the counterattack, despite their forces having already mounted a defensive position. Visual record of the attack has proven to be unrecoverable, the energy generated by the weapon’s impact causing all nearby recording equipment to malfunction.

//////

Entry 130 

It’s embarrassing to admit, but no one else is reading this, so I guess I can let it slide. I keep looking for shooting stars outside the window. I dreamt about them again this morning–but I can never seem to catch them. They slip between my fingers, or dart out of reach. Is it crazy to think these dreams are connected to him? Maybe it’s just wishful thinking. 

Dan Heng hasn’t been able to find out much, but that’s not really a surprise. On the grand cosmic scale of things, Amphoreus barely just happened yesterday. March and I offered to help him look, but he insisted it was fine. We brought him snacks and bothered him for half the day anyway. 

It’d been a little while since just the three of us had hung out, I’ve missed it a lot. That first encounter at the Herta Space Station feels like an eternity ago. It kind of was an eternity ago, depending on how you want to look at it. 

March and Dan Heng passed out before I did, I’m writing this using March’s shoulder as a desk. I think I’m trapped here until the morning. Cherry Tart just came over and laid down too. It’s fine.

Entry 131

We’re stopping by Pier Point tomorrow. I’m not sure exactly what’s up, but Himeko said Dr. Ratio had promised her some piece of technology for the Express in exchange for some kind of material or data or something we already happened to have on the ship. Lucky us, huh? March is excited, it’s been a long time since we’ve gone shopping somewhere for fun rather than out of necessity, and at least five of the IPC’s biggest department stores are on Pier Point.

Maybe we’ll run into Aventurine on the way to finding the good Doctor. Knowing him, he’ll treat us to half the stuff we’d want anyway. Jokes aside, It’ll be good to see the two of them after this long, especially after that scare they had with the Antimatter Legion recently. The IPC’s lucky they’ve got all those planetary defenses and a Preservation Emanator to turn them back… maybe the Legion just wanted to send a message, but they’ve been taking a lot of losses as of late, which is… weird. Maybe the thing Ratio needed is related? I need to remember to ask Himeko about it later.

Entry 132 

I saw something today. 

“Come on , keep up! If you keep moving so slow you’re gonna get lost in the crowd!” 

“March, I need you to understand that you are so friggin small and nimble–”

“I am not, you’re just really really tall!!” 

March doubles back to catch Stelle’s wrist, her other hand occupied with what had to be a half dozen shopping bags already. Stelle carried several bags of her own, gripped in her hands and hooked on her elbows–some hers, some March’s, and a few were gifts for the less shopping-inclined. Dan Heng and Sunday weren’t particularly keen on wandering around in the dense crowds of Pier Point, so the former accompanied Himeko and Welt to the Intelligentsia Guild while the latter stayed with the Express. 

One of these days March is going to drag him off the train by his wings, Stelle thinks fondly as March tugs her along, off the sidewalk and onto the entryway of a colorful cafe, releasing her wrist as they free themselves from the crowd. 

“Here we are!” March announces, motioning up at the bright neon flowers surrounding the cafe’s name, “Hyai’i’s Bloom!” 

“Why this one specifically?” Stelle asks as they shuffle through the door, ducking into the single empty booth near the window. 

“I heard they have an incredible bubble tea,” March explains, struggling to shove her bags into the empty space next to her, “made from these flowers native to Hyai’i. It’s not a planet we’ve gotten to visit yet, so I thought it’d be a fun and unique thing to try!” 

Stelle hums as she too places her bags on the seat, content with the explanation. “Bubble tea is an excellent reason.” She plucks a menu from the box at the end of the table, then blinks in surprise. “Huh. I didn’t know Pier Point still used paper menus?”

“Oh wow, you’re right,” March chirps, picking up a menu of her own and turning it over, “You’d think it’d be all high tech stuff like every other shop we’ve stopped at. Maybe they’re trying to be authentic?” 

“Maybe!” Stelle shrugs noncommittally, eyeing the rainbow of drink options and additions they had to choose from. “Yeesh, they really make it hard to choose, huh.” 

“No kidding,” March agrees, leaning her chin in her hand as she agonizes over yet another purchasing decision she must make today. 

Luckily, one of the pre-made options quickly catches Stelle’s eye, so she leaves March to her deliberations while she watches the crowds outside. Hundreds of people flood by every moment, maybe thousands, millions a day. She wonders what this street looked like a few days ago when the Legion showed their face on the edge of the system. Did the IPC hide it until it was over? Did Qlipoth THEMSELF drive the Legion away? It was awfully daring for them to make such a move so close to another Aeon, but…

“Hey, are you alright? You looked real serious there for a second.” 

March’s words pull Stelle out of her thoughts, and she shakes her head. “Mm, just spacing out while people-watching.” 

“Hmmm, fair enough, there’s people from all over here,” March concedes, looking out the window as well. “When was the last time we went somewhere all bustling like this? Penacony, maybe?” 

“Probably, it got pretty crowded there the closer we got to the Festival. Though it got pretty crowded on the Luofu before the Wardance, too.”

“That’s true.” March’s expression pinches suddenly, as though she’d smelled something bad. “Why is it that half the time we make a stop somewhere, something crazy happens?”

“It’s a trailblaze thing I think,” Stelle laughs, “Adventure’s always been our calling, hasn’t it? We get somewhere new, or old, and we do what we can.”

“Right, right…” 

Stelle looks March up and down as the pink haired girl stares pensively out the window, her eyes lingering on the red flower pinned to her hair. March’s fashion sense had always been great and cute, but ever since Amphoreus, she’s been varying her color schemes a lot more. Little bit less blue, a little bit more red. It looked good on her, but the bolder and darker colors only accentuated the subtle changes in her demeanor. 

“Excuse me, are you two ladies ready to order?”

The two Nameless snap their heads up as a brightly dressed woman with feathery hair approaches their table with a pad and pen in hand, and Stelle rattles off her order while March scrambles to make her decision. 

While the server leans in to help March narrow down her options, Stelle opts to stare back out the window again, picking and choosing faces from the crowd to observe–a rushing foxian with bright green hair, a severe halovian with a spiky silver halo, a man dragged along by a line of several children. Never seeing the same person twice. A woman with long blue curls drifting behind her like they were underwater. Another person with what seemed like glittering scales across their skin. An exhausted-looking hooded man with a shock of pale hair and sun-gold eyes tucked into a dimly-lit alleyway, who glanced up and locked eyes with her–

Stelle calls out an apology as she hurries past the server and out the door of the cafe, leaving her bags and an alarmed March behind. Bursting out through the door, she scans the crowd again for that one singular face, finding him unmoving in that same space, shock in his eyes likely mirroring her own before they soften in a tired smile. She takes a step forward–

“Hey! What’s gotten into you!?” March tugs on Stelle’s arm, pulling her attention away from the crowd and down to her friend for just a moment, but a moment was long enough.

When she looks back up, he's gone–there's only a flickering streetlight blinking down at an empty alley.

We haven’t been able to find Phainon again. But I know that I saw him. 

I bought March all the bubble tea she wanted in exchange for having to deal with my goose chase the whole day. I say that, but I think she felt so bad for distracting me and losing sight of him that she keeps trying to sneak the credits back into my pockets anyway. I asked Aventurine if he had access to any cameras in Pier Point so we could try to track him down, and he said he’d get someone to check the spot I saw him at. I’m glad Aventurine never asks for much, or I’d be up to my eyeballs in how much I owe the guy.

Honestly, I don’t think he’s still here anymore. I saw that shooting star again last night, and Pom-pom confirmed to us from the Express that that signal had appeared again as the star left Pier Point’s orbit. 

He’ll find us when it’s time. I’m just glad to have seen him at all.

Entry 133

It only just hit me, what seeing him here meant. Is he the one blowing up Legion warships? It’d explain why no one sees him coming, it all probably reads like Destruction to everyone’s sensors–no one’s ever checking if the Trailblaze is present when the Legion’s around. 

It really feels like something he’d do. Tirelessly being the hero. I hope he’s not pushing himself too hard.

We’re almost done with our trip. Dan Heng seemed to really like the headphones I picked up for him while they worked stuff out with Ratio. I knew the red and gold would look nice on him. We talked Sunday into coming out for dinner with us this time, with just myself, Dan Heng, and March. Apparently a certain Stoneheart promised we wouldn’t be bothered if our resident fugitive halovian was seen out in public. Poor Sunday was so anxious walking around Pier Point, I swear he almost started shedding feathers, but he loosened up after a little while. It’s nice to go out and have some fun without the grown-ups. Turns out the bird boy can’t hold his alcohol.

Entry 134

Sometimes I think about how lucky I am, to be stuck on an interstellar train with this pile of caring goofballs. 

Turns out Ratio hadn’t asked Himeko for anything, Himeko had asked him for help with an upgrade to some of the train’s sensors. She explained that this way, they can pick up on fainter traces of path energy and separate out their sources much more easily. It was a little embarrassing to be read like a book, but Dan Heng and March seemed really psyched by the prospect too. Not that chasing down a shooting star is the only thing this’ll be good for, but, y’know. Time to learn how to read all these graphs and numbers.

We were officially invited to the next big festival at Penacony in a couple months. Turns out Aventurine handed Himeko the VIP invitation himself! We obviously were plenty welcome to participate from the start, what with being shareholders and all, but the IPC does love dotting its i’s and crossing its t’s. Sunday’s a little bit on edge about it, but we told him he doesn’t have to get off the train if he doesn’t want to. I’m not really sure what to expect from this historical tribute kind of event, but, again, hopefully it doesn’t turn out as insane and chaotic as the Charmony Festival and the Holy Grail War. Sunday assures me that after the deal with the IPC the odds of something that crazy happening again were pretty damn low, if only because the Family would want to avoid yet another round of direly bad press. I sure hope he’s right.

Admittedly, I’m a little more worried about going back to Asdana in general. Having sat in Amphoreus’ memoria for so long, I’ve gotten a little tired of it. I wonder if I can weave dreams there now the way March got really good at it at Paperfold University.

Also learned that you can apparently fix a hangover with tuning. That feels like cheating. 

/////

Entry 141

Aventurine got back to me and said they couldn’t find any footage, but that the lack of footage was in itself way more interesting… The camera feeds in that part of town during the time we had seen Khaslana had been completely dead, like someone shorted out the whole area for a bit. You could almost track the path of partial blackouts across the city, where cameras were shutting off and streetlights started flickering in weird ways, up to around the time the Express had detected the signal’s departure. Dr. Ratio put us in contact with a specialist from the Intelligentsia Guild who’s an expert at tracking path energy across the cosmos, and told us they’d keep us updated on the movements of the Antimatter Legion and any other strange phenomena that happens around them. I’ll have to get our favorite Doctor and Stoneheart pair something nice when we meet back in Penacony again soon. Even though they’ll both insist I don’t have to. I know they didn’t have to go out of their way to do this, the least they can do is accept my gratitude. 

I had another dream about a falling star last night. I managed to catch it for just a second, but it turned to golden dust in my hands and slipped between my fingers. It was frightening for a moment, but then the cloud of dust swept itself back into a current, and shot away into the sky again. 

Entry 142

Passed by the Luofu again today. It’s been a little bit, we had to say hi to everyone while we stocked up on some extra supplies. The Ghost Hunting Squad insisted on a hangout, so I dragged Dan Heng, March, and Sunday along with me. March didn’t need much dragging, but the boys, well, y’know. They were much more amenable after we told them we were just going to Aurum Alley for food and chats. It was really nice to see Gui and Sushang and Huo Huo. They wanted to exchange stories, so they got to hear about some of the insane stuff we did. Maybe minus some of the grittier details… But who doesn’t love a story about grand heroes and epic journeys?

They were really endeared by Sunday, it was kind of hysterical. I don’t know if they’d ever met a halovian before, I thought the poor guy was about to burst from the attention. It took all his willpower to say no to a part in one of Guinaifen’s next streams, hah. Note for the future: Sunday also can’t keep down spicy food. I thought birds couldn’t taste spice…

We had a good long talk with the General too. The Xianzhou’s been keeping track of the Antimatter Legion’s movements as well, since they’ve been much more active after Irontomb was brought down–especially after that close call with the Fanghu. We thought it prudent to mention Khaslana to him; now that we knew he was active and possibly taking on the Legion, it wouldn’t do to have him mistaken for a foe. Jing Yuan shared with us in confidence that the Xianzhou had reason to believe the “interplanetary weapon” that slowed the Legion’s advance was in fact an unaffiliated third party and not some secret Fanghu tech–and that our description matched the information the Fanghu managed to collect during the brief conflict. 

Because of course he’d use his freedom to do hero shit. It really is just like him. I hope he’s doing okay.

/////

Entry 150

I had another star dream, but it was different this time. It started the same as all the others, but as it slipped past my fingers again, I’d had the thought–what if I just followed it? 

So I did. Just got up and started walking, hopping across galaxies like they were lily leaves in a pond, skating across nebulas like ice. The star slowed for a moment, almost like it knew I was chasing it, then started to speed up again. I started to run, but still, all I could catch was the golden glimmer of its tail. It hit me then. Maybe it doesn’t want to be caught. I stopped running, and it shot away into the dark. 

I asked Himeko about it over coffee. She said it sounded like I was worried he didn’t want to see us. I realized then that while everyone knew about the signal leaving Pier Point that night, I hadn’t told everyone that I’d actually seen him–so I explained it to her. She listened while sipping her coffee, and looked pensive for a bit when I was done. Then she said that maybe, it was less that he didn’t want to see us, and more that he might not think he was ready to. 

I thought about that for a while. It took Dan Heng, March and I a while to start feeling anywhere close to normal again, and we had a lot of friends to help us. He’s been alone the whole time with no one to talk to. Was he having nightmares too? How often was he stopping to rest like he had on Pier Point? 

She surprised me with a new journal later that day, this one a deep blue with a little star embossed in the corner. I asked her how she knew I was running out of room and she reminded me she bought my last one too, and figured I was running out of space by now. Himeko’s always been so thoughtful, I never know what to do for her in return. 

Guess I’ll be retiring this journal in a bit. Next time I dream about it, I’m going to catch that damn star if it’s the last thing I do ☆

/////

Another sleepless night.

Stelle taps the gilded tarot card against her chin, staring down at the blank page of the brand-new journal nestled in her lap. Not much had happened today, just a quiet day of travel, but for some reason, she remains on edge. 

The crew has been trying to map out the trajectory and movements of the Antimatter Legion–a task made much easier with the information from Aventurine’s informant, reports from the Luofu, and their own new and improved path energy sensors. Requisitioning information about the Legion attack on Herta Space Station from way back then made the process even smoother, allowing the crew to categorize and filter sources of data much more easily as they looked for patterns.

And patterns, they found.

Among the bright splotches of Destruction energy left behind by the Legion as they burned through the cosmos, every so often, there would arrive a sudden new surge of energy…and then it would depart as quickly as it came. The data all matched up with news reports–the Legion squares up to some planet or another, and sometimes, something explodes catastrophically out of nowhere, forcing them to retreat. Recalling the raging blaze Khaslana turned against his maker and jailer, she could picture the carnage clearly in her mind. She’s certain he could tear a Doomsday Beast in two with his bare hands. 

His last sighting wasn’t too far away–the water planet Thalassa was only a system over, and the Legion was already moving away from there. Stelle wonders if they’re being forced to plan around him now. It’s unclear what manner of strength he escaped with after taking victory over the Lord Ravager–did he inherit Irontomb’s own golden blood? Its ability to infect technology on contact? Whatever he managed to keep hold of was enough to carry him through the stars and cause Nanook plenty of trouble, so he had plenty of fuel left to burn. 

Stelle frowns down at the glittering card, not particularly fond of the way that thought came to her mind. Not fuel, no, that implies it’s expendable, that it’ll run out. She’d compare him to the blazing sun he always wanted to become, brilliant and self-sustaining, but even the brightest stars blink out one day…

She sighs and tucks the card back into the journal, snapping it closed. Maybe a change of scenery will help her get her thoughts together. At that precise moment, something starts beeping faintly from outside her door, and her phone lights up with a smattering of texts emotes in the Express group chat, one line in particular catching her eye–

March

[21:32] The shooting star is back!

When looking out her window reveals nothing, she assumes their fellow traveler must be on the other side of the train–without even dropping her journal or pulling on shoes, she practically sprints down the spiral staircase into the party car. 

Something is beeping even more loudly when she reaches the bottom of the stairs, though it doesn’t sound like the alarm from last time. Dan Heng hurries past Stelle towards the front of the train, jacket thrown over his sleep clothes, calling out something about sensor arrays before disappearing out the other end of the party car. Glancing around, she spots March on the starboard side and hurries to join her. Her fellow Nameless stands with her hands pressed to the window, eyes sparkling as she watches the spectacle on the other side of the glass. 

While the giant ocean planet Thalassa was still fairly far away, its bright blue surface was still dimly visible behind the crystalline asteroid belt that ringed the system. Their local star, Thalassa-α, was a perfectly average bright yellow sun, but it backlit the asteroid belt in such a way that each one sparkled like a miniature star on its own. It was a beautiful sight in its own right, and Stelle would have happily gotten out of bed just to see it–but they were looking for a very particular star tonight.

“Did you see him?” Stelle asks, setting the journal in her hands down on the ledge of the window and scanning the sparkling view. 

“I thought so, but I lost track of him behind the belt…” March mumbles, squinting out the window and pointing a little bit towards the right, “I swear I saw something moving in this direction, but this sun’s shining just the wrong way…”

Stelle follows her direction, and looks more closely between the sparkling blue gleams of the asteroid belt, trying to spot gold–

“There!” March calls out suddenly, her finger suddenly pointing a bit lower than before. Stelle’s gaze follows it again, and she finally sees it: a bright point of gold, shining even against that nearby star, weaving its way between azure blue stone. 

Stelle nearly jumps out of her skin when Dan Heng is suddenly next to her, a small screen in his hand displaying various readings–a glance down reveals the answer to the question she’d wanted to ask, and when she looks up, the vidyadhara nods in confirmation. “It’s a match.” 

Stelle presses her own hand to the glass, devoting her full attention to that point of light. It’s the closest they’ve seen him since departing Amphoreus, and she wishes they had some way to flag him down. It was too dangerous for a vessel the size of the Express to try and wind through the Thalassan Belt, so there was little hope of catching up to him. The Express seemed to be slowing down, in fact–Himeko probably pumped the brakes so they could get a better look. 

“Do you think he knows we’re here?” March asks with a melancholy tone Stelle still isn’t used to from her.

“It’s hard to say,” Dan Heng answers, setting his portable screen down next to Stelle’s journal, “if we can see him, he can probably see us. But if the last encounter was any indication, he might be generating too much energy for it to be safe for him to approach the train.” 

It would make sense. The readings on Dan Heng’s screens were nearly off the charts, the way they’d usually respond when approaching something with emanator-level power. The train may be well protected, but putting the power of several million suns near it might be pushing it… “When I saw him at Pier Point, he seemed… almost normal,” Stelle muses, remembering the sad smile on his face, “No wings, no halo…Just another person on the street.”

“Maybe he needs to use all his power to travel,” March suggests, finally peeling her hands from the glass and instead resting them on the window ledge. “The train needs a lot of fuel to run on the rail, if he really isn’t using a ship, then he’s just been flying across the whole cosmos on his own two wings...” 

The thought of it lights that kindling in Stelle’s chest again. What would it be like to fly freely like that? To push past the limits of humanity and take to the stars as easily as a bird takes to the sky?

" Did… did he stop?”

March’s voice pulls Stelle out of her musing thoughts, and surely enough–that point of golden light had stopped, gleaming in front of an asteroid as though someone was aiming a spotlight or a laser pointer at the train’s window. She stands there quietly with March and Dan Heng on either side of her, the three of them watching that bright star twinkle in the sky for what felt like an eternity. 

Another glimmer of light catches her eye, and she glances down to see her tarot card, sticking out of the top of her journal, catching and reflecting the starlight. Stelle takes the card from between the pages and holds it to her chest. Please, come closer, Stelle begs, we want to see you, even if only for a little while. We miss you. We want to know you’re alright.

The proximity alarm suddenly starts to blare, shaking the three from their reverie. Dan Heng swipes his screen back from the window ledge, and his expression immediately shifts from confusion to deep concern. At the same time, the Conductor’s shrill voice calls loudly over the train’s intercom: “An Antimatter Legion warband just dropped out of warp on our port side! The Express is about to begin evasive maneuvers! Please take up defensive positions, and hold on tight!” 

…

Like any spacefaring vessel with the capacity to do so, the Astral Express needs time before it can jump to warp speed. Unlike any terrestrial train, the Express is surprisingly maneuverable, and the silver rail’s paths are forgiving. However, outmaneuvering a force designed to destroy anything in its path with little care for accuracy or collateral is a highly difficult task, no matter how skilled Pom-pom and Himeko might be at the controls. 

It doesn’t take long for the rest of the Nameless to arm themselves, and a good thing too; the Express’s barrier of imaginary energy keeps any large foes or glancing weapon blows from immediately dealing critical damage, but the smaller voidrangers are able to find the cracks, and drag their amorphous antimatter forms into the ship through sheer willpower. 

Stelle swings her bat with enough force that a voidranger’s helmet cracks under the blow, the creature releasing a distorted howl of pain before collapsing on itself and vanishing into nothingness. She spins to deflect a pair of bladed arms, then strikes down another, and another, letting their armored forms crumple to the ground before they too, find their ends in the void. Fire thrums through her blood as the stellaron hums with joy in the throes of combat, and she takes a deep breath to pull herself back into focus. Her friends. The train.  

March’s frozen arrows whizz through the air around her, nailing one, two, three voidrangers right where their eyes should be; when one of them attempts to fire a large cannon at her in reprisal, a cocoon of ice manifests around her, absorbing the shots harmlessly before lashing out at the rangers with sharpened tendrils, like striking serpents or stinging tentacles. A wall of water sweeps past the both of them, the roaring mouth of a dragon manifesting for just long enough to swallow down a half dozen rangers, carrying them far down the hallway of the train car they’re fighting in. 

Dan Heng is still standing strong behind her when she turns to check on him, spear in hand, gilded horns curling up from his head, teeth bared in a snarl as he leaps towards a charging centaurid ranger. The creature howls when it’s speared in the chest, and it flails its hooves furiously at the vidyadhara, who roars and pushes back on it even harder, ocean-colored tail lashing behind him. 

Why is the legion here? Weren’t they driven back from Thalassa not too long ago? 

The Express lurches to the side as a loud rumble shakes the train, and it’s all Stelle can do to keep her footing as the rangers tumble from the surprise movement, her journal falling from inside her jacket pocket, her bat nearly flying from her grip. Another set of alarms start going off. Did something hit us? Clearly they’re not just dealing with a stray detachment fleeing from their latest failure. The sound of another explosion follows, somewhere further down the train, but no shudder accompanies it–whatever the cause, it hadn’t hit the train directly.

Then, a blinding gold light blasts past the windows. Both Nameless and voidranger alike flinch away from the glare on instinct, but the voidrangers begin to shriek with fury. The ones still able to move begin to warp away, their heavy steps reverberating through the roof of the train above them as they regroup to face a new target. Dan Heng finishes off the one still on the end of his spear before turning his gaze upwards, eyes narrowed against the bright light outside. “Something’s changed,” he hisses as the other two hurry closer and take up ready positions near him, weapons held in defensive stances. 

The light outside dims just enough to reveal the form of their fellow interstellar traveler: the remains of a tattered cloak drifting around his legs, a clawed gauntlet holding a brilliant blade, a pair of ornate wings silhouetted in black against the near blinding light of his halo, his face obscured by his own solar glow. 

The Nameless only had a moment to stare in shock before Khaslana blasted up and over the train, crossing the distance in a mere instant with one flap of his wings. The force of his passing causes the Express to shudder, but Stelle stumbles her way to the other side of the train in time to see the shattered, burning bodies of voidrangers flung from the top of the train. The shooting star passes over them again before sharply turning around and moving towards another section of the train–another thundering noise accompanies the movement of that solar glow. The intercom crackles to life again, this time broadcasting Himeko’s voice: “Looks like your hero made it just in time! The voidrangers are leaving the Express en masse to focus on him–If he can delay the legion just long enough, we might have time to make the jump. Everyone, please find a safe spot and hunker down!” 

Dan Heng exhales a surprised laugh, his horns fading and the stormy glow in his eyes receding. “Lucky us!” March chirps, allowing her six phased ice to dissipate into steam. “We should get out of here! Stelle, that includes you–ohhh heck. ” 

Stelle is not listening for the same reason March was rendered speechless; she and Dan Heng join Stelle at the window to witness a frankly terrifying sight. “A-And here I thought dealing with one of those things had been kind of a situation .”

Three Doomsday Beasts emerge from the Antimatter Legion warship, their great black wings blotting out the asteroid belt behind them as the Express continues its attempt to speed past. While they’re still a ways away, it would take them no time at all to reach the train–and that’s if they don’t simply open fire to start with–but much to their collective confusion, the horrific draconic amalgamates don’t attack, but begin to circle carefully, their gazes fixed on something other than the Express. When their heads turn sharply to follow that golden light across the top of the train, Stelle is suddenly struck with understanding.

“The Legion isn’t here for us,” she gasps, “we were just bait–they were trying to corner him!”

Dan Heng curses under his breath, and allows his spear to dematerialize. “We have to get ready for the warp.” 

“We can’t just leave him,” Stelle argues, dodging March’s attempts to grab her wrist, “he’s only caught up in this because of us!” 

“Well we can’t just hop off the train and throw hands with the Legion either!” March retorts, dismissing her bow and making a sweeping motion towards the chaos outside the window. On the other side of the glass, another flash of light, and Khaslana leaps from the train, putting himself between the Legion’s forces and the Express once more, golden light trailing behind him so much like a shooting star as he flew alongside them. “He’d want us to go and be safe, you know he would!”

She knows. It doesn’t hurt any less to leave him behind. Stelle grits her teeth and ducks down to grab her journal off the ground, the starry tarot card nearly falling out as she does. You can’t help him right now. You just have to believe he’ll be alright.

When she looks back up, Khaslana has turned his gaze towards the train, his halo dimmed, but that same starfire still burning in his gaze and through the crack in his chest. She meets his stare, and his eyes squint–she can’t see the rest of his face clearly, but she knows what that look means. I’ll be alright. Stelle nods at him and pumps her fist for good measure, and his shoulders shake in a laugh before he flares his wings out and brings himself to a dead stop, letting the train speed past him and towards safety. 

The last thing Stelle sees before the Express finally makes the jump is that brilliant shooting star cleaving a Doomsday Beast in two.

Chapter Text

Entry 158

I had hoped our meeting today would have been under better circumstances. After seeing him so briefly at Pier Point, I’d really wanted to talk to him. We’re still not sure whether the Legion attacking the Express was a coincidence due to accidental proximity or a calculated move to draw him out, but the Legion isn’t the Swarm. Odds are it was the latter. I know we don’t control the path the silver rail sets us on, but I can’t help but feel guilty all the same. Either way, I’m grateful he was there—if he hadn’t been, it would have gone much, much worse. 

Nobody was grievously hurt. Dan Heng took a hit or two, but he walked it off and insisted he was fine. I saw him running cloudhymn magic over his wounds—he’d brushed up on some healing techniques with Hyacine and the priests of Phagousa—but he refused to be fussed over otherwise. 

One of those voidrangers with the blades got me in the arm, but I didn’t even feel it until after we warped. Hurt like an absolute bitch after things calmed down and I noticed it was there. Dan Heng insisted on trying to fix that too, but I shooed him off. I could tell it was wearing him out. It wasn’t that bad a cut anyway. 

March was okay, thankfully, her ice shields have gotten really really strong, and helped keep Dan Heng and I safe too. The others were mostly fine as well... Sunday caught a stray shot to the shoulder but it was a glancing blow, and Welt apparently did not let it go unanswered. The two of them had been protecting the locomotive with the help of Himeko’s drone while she and Pom-Pom tried to start the warp. Welt said it would have been a dire situation without Sunday; his harmonic tuning apparently lets him stop a dozen rangers in their tracks long enough for Welt’s powers and Himeko’s drone to take them out like fish in a barrel. Sunday was too tired and sore to fight the flattery. 

Besides some damage to the inside from the fighting, the train itself got out mostly in one piece. The imaginary shielding deflected most of their artillery—either the Express is harder to hit than I thought, or they weren’t really aiming for us—but one of the cargo cars had a hole punched into it. Himeko says it was easy to seal off, but it’ll be rough to repair. We’ll have to make a long stop somewhere before we get to Penacony; she plans to rearrange the cars so it doesn’t cut off our access to half the train while she works on fixing it. In the meantime, we’re refraining from using the warp until repairs are done to avoid straining the Express too much. 

We don’t know what happened to Khaslana after the attack, we jumped a far enough distance that the battle left the range of our sensors. The little voidrangers clearly didn’t slow him down, but one Doomsday Beast is a tall order without divine intervention, much less three of them at once. I suppose he himself was an intervention on our behalf. 

I hope he’s okay. 

Entry 159

We limped the Express to the edge of the Asdana system, there’s an IPC rest stop here that we’re going to stay at for a little while. Himeko’s making a few calls to see if we can get expedited shipping on some repair materials for the ruined cargo car and other smaller repairs. She doesn’t think we’ll need to beg any of our contacts for any favors, but we’re keeping it on the table just in case. Being at an IPC stop makes it easier, at least. Last I saw she was still at one of the tables at the party car, drawing over schematics and mathing out her repairs. She has her work cut out for her, we told her we’d help however she needs us to.

March and I managed to talk Dan Heng into actually getting some rest instead of pacing a rut into the party car. He’d been on edge all day until we got to Asdana, with that stormy glow in his eyes that only shows up when he’s ready to use cloudhymn, but I could tell he was exhausted after that situation. 

Sunday left his room once the whole day, March took him food a few times but I’m pretty sure he was just out like a light the entire time. I don’t think he’s been in the middle of a fight like that before, at least, not one where he’s relying solely on his own power and not driving an emanator like it’s one of Welt’s mechas. I should check on him later, when I know he’s awake. 

Speaking of Welt, he’s been scarce too. I found him in the navigation car with a pot of coffee, running all the sensors and scanners again. I asked him if he was looking for Khaslana, and he just smiled and said he wanted to be able to thank him for what he did for us. I understand. 

Pom-Pom has been fussing over the inside of the train, cleaning up everything they can reach; my arm still hurts, but I helped them with everything they couldn’t. There’s some things cleaning wouldn’t help—some of the seating in the parlor car was a little scorched, Sunday’s going to need a new piano—but the tidying kept us busy. March joined us after we talked Dan Heng into going to bed. Pom-pom was quiet; clearly the ordeal shook them pretty badly, but working on what we could do kept them focused, and March and I tried to keep up the chatter as much as we could. We were all tired though. Eventually only the music player and the sound of brooms filled the silence.

I had another dream last night. The sky was full of stars, but they were all unmoving. It was beautiful, but none of them were within my reach. One glimmered and sparkled in the distance, but wouldn’t come down when I held out my hand.

I really, really hope he’s okay.

//////

It was dark in her room when Stelle awoke. 

Strange, she thought, I usually leave a light on. She wasn’t surprised she was having a hard time sleeping. Even through the exhaustion, rest had proved difficult to come by for the whole crew. Stelle sat up in bed, rubbed her eyes and squinted through her room. I really don't remember turning all my lights off . Her eyes adjusted to the thin cascade of starlight entering through the window behind her bed, only to find that all her light switches were still flipped to “on” despite the darkness.

That’s… not quite right. Did Himeko turn off the power to the party car to do repairs?

Stelle stretched her arms over her head, resigned to getting out of bed to check on the train’s engineer, before something gold glinted at the corner of her vision. Her first instinct was to look out the window, but there were no golden stars there, only distant pinpricks of white and silver. She then turned her gaze downwards to her nightstand, where her journal rested. The tarot card she kept tucked into her journal to keep her place was, unusually, glowing a soft gold from between the pages.

Stelle quickly reached for the journal and plucked the card from it to inspect it more closely. She winced when the card flashed a brilliant golden light as she lifted it, and instinctively held it further from her face in an attempt to keep from going blind. The edges of the card were gleaming gold, boxing in the telltale crystalline blue of memoria in the background of the card’s artwork. The myriad shooting stars upon it also shone in a brilliant gold, with the centermost one flaring to an almost solar brightness before dimming down for a moment, then flaring again. Almost like a radar blip, or a heartbeat. 

Stelle leapt out of bed, holding the shining card close, unsure what to do next. It was late. Should she wake someone? Would March know what to do? 

Before any of these questions could be answered, the glow of the card flared to life once again, and Stelle held open her hands as it gently floated from her grasp. It drifted away on its own, and the trailblazer’s gaze followed its twirling path to the window, where it pressed itself flat to the glass–and met its twin, an identical card made from crystalline memoria blue and brilliant silver light, pressed to the other side of the glass by the shadow of somebody else’s hand.

She ran to the window, clambered over her desk and her bed to get onto the ledge, and pressed her hand to the card to match her interstellar visitor. This time, that solar glow between their hands enveloped the room and illuminated all the space outside, and the glass between them suddenly vanished. Stelle should have panicked at the sudden loss of protection from the void of space, but instead she found herself oddly at ease, and chose instead to reach through the empty window frame to grasp at his hand, trapping the two tarot cards between their palms.

Stelle laughed, disbelieving, looking down at where her black glove met the shining gold of Khaslana’s gauntlet before lifting her gaze to meet his. Khaslana’s own golden eyes were wide with shock, and a small cry of alarm escaped him as Stelle leapt from the window and out into the void, pushing them both away from the relative safety of the Express. He tried to catch her on instinct, his free hand grasping at hers for stability, and his alarmed expression quickly turned to confusion. 

“It’s alright,” Stelle laughed, grinning ear to ear as she held his hands tightly. He was warm, like standing out in the sun. “I’ll be okay. This is a dream.”

Khaslana’s expression dropped immediately. “A dream…?” he muttered, his grip on her hands tightening ever so slightly. The pointed claws on his gauntlet gently pressed into the back of her hand, and she was surprised to find his unarmored hand was tipped with pointed nails as well.

“Not a normal one, though,” Stelle quickly assured, noting his immediate despair–even in this form, he wears his emotions on his sleeve. She squeezed his hands a little in return, an attempt at reassurance, and he loosened his grip slightly. “We’re in a dream bubble, I think.” Khaslana stared blankly at her, clearly confused, and it took everything in her power not to laugh at the earnest expression, so familiar on that slightly different face. “The Asdana system is full of memoria, so sometimes people’s dreams are more real than normal, and can even connect to each other’s.” She looked back at their joined hands and the soft glow emanating from between them. As expected of a fortune teller, Black Swan was always ten steps ahead. Though it doesn’t explain how he got …

Something caught Khaslana’s attention over her shoulder and Stelle was suddenly pulled in closer to him, his unarmored hand releasing hers and looping around her middle to hold her tightly. It was only when she turned her head to look behind her that she realized that the Express was gone, and the two of them were alone and adrift among the stars. She carefully patted at his shoulder in an attempt to convince him to relax his hold—a difficult feat, with her arm trapped between their chests. “It’s okay,” she promised, holding her smile as she met his eyes again, “Seriously. If it was gonna be a problem, you know I would have been toast a while ago.”

He stared down at her, eyebrows pinched together in thought for a few moments before slowly relaxing his grip on her, though he seemed reluctant to let go. Stelle chuckled again, and he gave her a bemused look before his eyes squinted up into the beginnings of a smile. “Okay,” he mumbled quietly, “Alright. I believe you.” 

It was then that Stelle noticed how…dim he seemed. When they had briefly met just a few days prior, his light had been near blinding, brilliant flames radiating from him like a solar flare. He wasn’t painful to look at here–his halo and the gap in his chest still shed golden light, but the glow in his eyes had diminished, and she wondered if this was just an effect of the dream until she saw the circles under his eyes. Her hand rose unbidden to his face, emboldened by the fact that she knew this was a dream, and her thumb traced a line across his cheek just under his eyes. His face was so, so warm. “You’re tired, aren’t you?” 

Khaslana’s unguarded emotions showed plainly on his face, eyes going wide before they drooped closed with a sigh, and his head bobbed down in confirmation. Stelle looped her arm around his neck and pulled herself close again, the hand that was still clasped in his gently squeezing just a little more tightly. Even in the dream, and in this form, he still smelled like sunlight and wheat fields. She buried her face in his shoulder, and mumbled “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” he asked, his shell now cracked, exhaustion creeping into the rasp in his voice.

“You had to push yourself to help us.” 

“That wasn’t your fault.”

Stelle’s hand balled into a fist at his back, and her grip on his gauntlet tightened to the point where she could feel the sharp edges of metal pressing hard into the fabric of her gloves. “We could have taken another route, or passed through at a different–”

“ Stelle .”

She quieted, took another breath, and steadied herself so she could say what she really meant. Her hand found the back of his head, and in another moment of boldness, her fingers gently drifted into his hair. “Thank you. For saving us. We wouldn’t have made it without you.”

Stelle heard and felt his sigh, his breath ruffling her hair, chest rising and falling with hers. She buried her face further into his shoulder, and he held her closer in response, leaning his head against hers before answering, “What kind of hero would I be if I didn’t try to save the people I care about?” 

When Stelle lifted her head, she wondered when the heavens around them had gotten so bright, until she realized the brilliant expanse of his wings had closed around them both. She could have sworn one of his wings had been dark before, but now those metallic feathers all gave off a soft golden light. She didn’t have much time to think about it–the smile on his face was real this time, a horrible fondness in his eyes she was certain was reflected in her own. He was the hero of her heart, too.

But Stelle knew even sweet dreams couldn’t last forever, and he must have noticed a change in her expression the moment the thought came to her mind, as his fond smile too faded to wistfulness. “This is a dream,” he murmured again, looking at their joined hands, where the thumb of his armored hand carefully rubbed back and forth against her own, that soft glow still illuminating the spaces between their fingers. Stelle’s eyes turned to follow his, fixated on the motion of his hand, watching his thumb move like the ticking hand of a clock. Was the metal coating his arm always so dark? 

“It is,” Stelle began, “but if we were able to find each other here, in the Dreamscape, that means we aren’t too far apart from each other in reality.” 

Khaslana’s stare snapped back to her face, and she looked up at him to see his brows once again furrowed with concern. “You’re not coming to look for me,” he said dubiously, the statement caught somewhere between an order and a question. 

“We’re going to.”

“It’s too dangerous to have me nearby,” he argued, lips halfway curled into a snarl, his voice suddenly stronger than before, “not just because of who and what I am–the Legion is looking for me, and I don’t want to bring that hell back down on you or the rest of the Nameless.”

A disbelieving scoff escaped her before she could suppress it. Why don’t you ever extend yourself the same grace you give others? “We want to help you,” Stelle answered firmly, her hand returning to his cheek, “after all you did for us, we at least want to show you our gratitude. You’re exhausted. You’re injured. We’ll figure something out. Just let us help. Please.”  

Something in her eyes must have caught him by surprise, the snarl vanishing and that unguarded expression of shock returning to his face. For a moment, he almost looked like he was going to argue. Then he tightly shut his eyes and took a deep breath, before he released the tension in his shoulders and leaned his head into her hand. “Alright,” he muttered again, his voice almost inaudible, exhaustion reducing it to a quiet rumble, “okay. How do I find you?”

“We’ll find you,” she answered quickly, her thumb once again stroking a gentle line under his eye. She lifted their joined hands a little before continuing, “The Express has sensors that can detect surges of path energy, but, I think the cards are going to be the answer. The amount of Memoria in this star system might be what we need for them to lead us to each other in reality.”

Khaslana nodded in understanding, the arm around her middle releasing her, only to find its place over hers. He holds it against his cheek for a few more moments before pulling it away and holding it in his. He is so, so warm, like standing outside in the sun. “Where should I be?” 

Stelle racked her brain, trying to remember what the closest planet to that tiny little IPC rest stop is. She took her hand back from his grip and tried to concentrate her thoughts–it had been a while since she had tapped into the power of Remembrance, but the cold chill of memory quickly found its way to her fingers. She started drawing a map in the space between them and the warm golden veil of Khaslana’s wings, blue and pink coalescing into stars and planets. “We saw you here,” she said, pointing at a spot on her map, “and we warp jumped to here,” her finger dragged a dotted silver line from one point to the next, “then traveled the normal way here,” a solid silver line to the next spot. “Do you remember the direction you flew in after?” 

Khaslana raised his hand and placed his finger at the same starting point Stelle marked, then drew a line in a slightly different direction, surprising Stelle as he marked his own path with a line of glittering gold, until he reached a stopping point at the edge of the system. She sighed in relief–he was just outside the range of the Express’s sensors, but he wasn’t too far away. 

“Okay. If you go here,” she explained, making one more mark on the map, a single point of blue somewhere in between both their endpoints, “there’s a small planet here. Asdana…zeta, I think. I want to say it’s mostly uninhabited, but it's habitable. If… that makes sense. I’d just have you come straight here, but this space port is a little… small. And I have a feeling you don’t want to be so conspicuous.” 

He chuckled a little, eyes fixed on the map as he committed the directions to memory, “You feel correctly,” he affirmed. His voice still sounded just as tired, but the light in his chest glowed just a little bit brighter. He turned to face her again. “Can the Express make the trip after…?”

“If it can’t, we’ll find another way there. Like I said, space port.” Stelle grinned, then wiggled their joined hands again, “We’ll be able to tell when you get close. Promise.”

For the third time in that dream, though with the most confidence she’d heard from him yet, Khaslana replied, “Okay, partner. You know I trust you.” He turned his eyes back to their joined hands–they both knew what came next. Stelle knew that despite his initial hesitance to make contact, parting here was going to be difficult for him–for both of them. 

Her hand returned to his cheek and his attention was immediately back on her, concern and confusion once again plainly displayed on his face, until she leaned up to press her forehead against his. “You just need to remember one thing, Phainon,” she murmured, “This isn’t a goodbye.”

The confusion in his face melted into understanding, and he shut his eyes as a chuckle halfway to a sob escaped his throat. “I know. See you tomorrow.” 

They released each other’s hands at the same time. Stelle watched as his smile was consumed by that solar-flare brightness, and all at once, he dissolved into golden stardust that drifted through her fingers before firing off like a sparkling swarm into the depths of space once again, joining their brethren in the starry firmament. A single mote of light drifted close to her, dancing in circles around her head before drifting into her hand, and turning into that gilded tarot card once more. 

Stelle awakens in her room. 

//////

“You saw WHOM, WHERE?” 

Stelle winces. She might have had an especially lucid dream-bubble-adjacent experience, but that doesn’t mean she hadn’t just woken up not two minutes ago. To be fair, March had woken up maybe two seconds ago. “Phainon. Dream bubble.” She wiggles her tarot card for emphasis, the sparkly gold details catching the light of March’s lamp. “This thing, he had one too, somehow, just in a different color. I’m not sure how. But I dreamt I was in my room, and he just… showed up outside my window, and we talked for a while.”

“And is he okay? ” March asks, leaning forward on her hands and knees and making the mattress bounce them both a little bit, concern plain in her now wide-awake eyes, “The situation looked pretty dang serious when we warped!” 

“He’s… in one piece,” Stelle says carefully, quickly waving a hand when March’s expression drops, “No, I mean, he’s okay! He just looked… really, really tired. Like someone dimmed the lights down really far. I could actually look straight at him without squinting, it was… kind of worrying, actually.” She looks back down at the card in her hand, tipping it back and forth and watching it catch the light. She remembers how blinding he was, when she last saw him at full strength. As difficult to look at as he was when he appeared to defend the Express, it still paled in comparison to the radiant image of him she’d had seared into memory. “He was so quiet.” 

March shuffles onto the edge of the bed and sits next to Stelle properly, brows still furrowed together with worry. “Do you know where he is?” she asks, and perks up when Stelle nods. “Did you want to go look for him? I’d go with you!!” 

“I already told him where we might be able to meet him,” Stelle explains, setting the card down in her lap and taking out her phone instead. “He’s just about on the edge of Asdana right now–I’m assuming that’s how we were able to end up in the same dream.” 

“Crazy the kind of stuff you can do with memoria, huh,” March mutters as she watches Stelle navigate the map on her screen, “to think, last time we were here, we all got dunked into the dream the moment we warped in. Never mind all the crazy things that happened in Amphoreus.”

“Understatement of the millennium right there,” Stelle snickers, finally zooming in on the point she needed on her map… and being interrupted by a knock on the door along with a familiar voice. 

“March? Are you alright?”

March’s hand shoots up to her mouth as she grimaces in embarrassment. “Whoops, didn’t mean to wake him… Dan Heng! You can come in!” 

The vidyadhara allows himself into the room, first blearily blinking away sleep, then blinking again in surprise when he sees Stelle sat next to March. “Mn. That explains the noise.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” March squeaks indignantly, then squeaks again when Stelle hipchecks her in a wordless request to scoot over on the bed. 

Dan Heng accepts the wordless invitation, sitting down in the newly created space. “It means you two make exponentially more noise when in the same room together. What are you doing?” he asks before March can attempt to defend herself, peering down at Stelle’s phone. 

“She talked to Phainon!” March announces, and Dan Heng leans forward past Stelle to stare at her, raising an incredulous eyebrow. “What, it’s true!”

“It’s true,” Stelle affirms, and Dan Heng’s incredulous stare changes targets to her. “We met in a dream bubble, I think,” she explains again, picking up her card and wiggling it at Dan Heng, “through this–and I think this is the key to finding him in reality, too.” Dan Heng’s mildly incredulous look furrows into one of intense thought as he gently plucks the card from Stelle’s fingers, allowing her to return to mapping out paths on her phone as he inspects it. “He said he was around here,” she continues, pointing at a spot on her map, then drawing several lines across her screen, “I told him we were here at the port, but I figured he wouldn’t want to cause a scene by just showing up here, cause he’s gonna call attention to himself no matter how much he tries, what with his everything , so I told him to meet us on... Whew, okay, it is Asdana Zeta.” 

“Can he get himself there safely?” Dan Heng asks, his eyes flicking between Stelle’s phone and her face. That furrow between his eyebrows was still there. Despite everything they knew Phainon–Khaslana? was capable of, that matchup against the Legion didn’t look good no matter how you tried to approach it. 

“He can,” Stelle answers firmly, drawing some extra lines on her map before saving it, “He said he would, though was kind of hesitant about coming to meet us. He’s scared he’d bring the Legion to us again.” 

“It would be foolish for the Legion to try and approach IPC controlled space again after being routed so badly outside Pier Point,” Dan Heng states flatly, holding the starry card back out to Stelle, who takes it and tucks it back into her jacket. “And if Phainon did manage to destroy even just part of that fleet, they won’t have enough forces to make any headway past an IPC blockade.” 

“It mostly just looked like one big ship anyway,” March says, tapping her chin with one finger, “one big ship full of horrible space laser dragon things, but, still just the one!” 

Stelle chuckles, appreciating the dual vote of confidence, then sighs and puts her phone away. “We’ll have to get the others in on this at some point. Obviously we can’t take the train out there while it’s mid repairs, but…” 

“But we can definitely rent something from the space port!” March chirps, clapping her hands together as she finishes Stelle’s sentence, leaning into her side reassuringly. “It’s like, what, two planets over? That’s a day trip!” 

“We’ll just have to keep an eye on the sensors, so we know when he’s properly entered the system,” Dan Heng muses, staring vaguely out into space as he thinks.

“It’s too bad we can’t take the array off the Express,” March huffs as she tips backwards into her bed, arms splayed out to the sides, “would make keeping track of this guy way easier while we’re getting down there.”

“Perhaps Miss Himeko can relay the signal back to us from here,” Dan Heng offers, and Stelle shrugs. It’s a good enough idea. Maybe one to worry about in the morning, she thinks.

Suddenly, something starts beeping loudly from the direction of the navigation cabin.

Or maybe we worry about it right the heck now.

//////

Stelle was grateful that Dan Heng had become an expert on this particular piece of technology in the navigation car, as navigating the menus on this thing was still an arcane art to her. Once they reach the right screen, though, the three of them understand the situation clearly.

Dan Heng reduces the layers of detail on the map down to the most necessary ones: Their own location and that of nearby planets and stations, the blurry blue clouds of Asdana’s natural memoria, and the strongest signals of path energy in the area: a bright silver dot where the Astral Express is docked, and an equally brilliant point of gold that had just barely entered the edge of the scanner’s range. 

“Aeons, he’s closer than I thought,” Stelle breathes, sparks kindling in her chest once more. She leans her arms on the back of the chair Dan Heng is seated on, careful not to tip him backwards as she does so. “Do you know how fast he’s moving?”

“We’ll have to monitor his signal a little bit longer,” Dan Heng answers, tapping the dot on the screen twice and expanding a window that would presumably display more information, if any was available. For now, it was somewhat empty. “He hasn’t been in range long enough for the scanner to determine that yet.”

“Should I get Himeko?” March asks, eyeing the two of them before looking back at the screen. “If he’s flying as quick as we saw before, he might get to that planet a lot sooner than we could fix the train!”

“We’re definitely not going to have enough time to fix the train,” Stelle mutters, pressing the heel of her palm between her eyes. Hell. She should have thought it through before she told him to go anywhere. But what if she hadn’t gotten another chance? What if he had flown away from Asdana and out of reach of her dreams? It’s too late to change anything now.

“I see our friend is nearby,” chimes in a voice from behind, and the three Nameless turn to see a somewhat sleepy looking Himeko peering in through the door. The navigator has her hair up in a messy bun, her black coat over her sleep clothes, a mug of coffee in her hands–possibly the least put together Stelle’s ever seen her, but she somehow manages to make it look chic. 

“Stelle talked to him through a dream bubble!” March chirps, then turns to point back at the slow-moving dot on the screen, “He’s coming into Asdana so we can meet up with him!” 

Suddenly alert, Himeko steps into the cabin proper, and Stelle moves aside to let her peer at the screen over Den Heng’s head. “ETA?” 

“None yet,” Dan Heng answers, “but soon. I already locked the scanner onto him.”

Himeko nods. “Good,” she says, then turns to Stelle. “Do you know where in Asdana he plans to stop? I assume it won’t be here at the port.” When Stelle leans forward to tap a planet on the map, Himeko nods again. “Dan Heng, can you pull down information on Asdana zeta? We’ll have to put together an away team, the Express won’t be ready to move for another few days.” Dan Heng nods, starts tapping away at the screen again, and Himeko turns to March. “When the shops at the port open, talk to Welt and see if you two can’t hire or rent a ship for a few days. We should have the credits for it, but you’re welcome to leverage our various IPC contacts if necessary.” Himeko flashes March a grin, and March returns it with a “Roger that!” before ducking out of the navigation cabin. 

“What should I be doing, Himeko?” Stelle asks, feeling a little bit like a useless stump standing there next to Dan Heng in his chair. Though this had been a goal of theirs for a while, it feels like she tipped that domino at exactly the wrong time.

“Find Sunday, and see if you can’t figure out a way to contact Khaslana again while he’s in transit,” Himeko suggests, “While the memoria here isn’t nearly so dense as it is in Penacony, he might have some insight on how to use it in this way.” 

Okay, okay, she can do that. Before she can confirm her task, the screen beeps again, and the three of them turn their attention to that still-moving bright golden dot, and the information box that was now filling with data.

“ETA is 36 system hours.” 

//////

Stelle and Sunday stare down at the gilded tarot card on the table between them. They’re both rapidly approaching their wits end, the only motion between them being the annoyed twitch of one of Sunday’s wings. They’d tried everything–tuning, Stelle’s pen, futile attempts at memoria manipulation, but it simply wasn’t dense enough near the station for either of them to achieve much. 

After a few more moments of staring, Stelle sighs and leans back against the cushion of the party car’s booth, throwing her hands up in the air. “Well, I’m all out of ideas.” 

Sunday huffs, leaning his chin in his hand. “Leave it to the memokeeper to gift you with a boon, then not explain how it works.” 

“She probably thinks we’ll figure it out on our own eventually,” Stelle says, glancing out the train’s window at the bright lights of the station. March and Welt had gone out several hours ago to try and commission or borrow a ship, and Stelle wonders how they’re doing. 

“But eventually isn’t now,” Sunday grumbles, wings pressing against the side of his head as he taps the card with one finger, “You were clearly able to use this to connect with him in your dream, a process assisted by Asdana’s ambient memoria, but it’s seeming impossible to harness while you’re awake.”

“Which is terribly inconvenient for us,” Stelle grumbles in return, turning her head to stare at the ceiling, “I don’t think I could sleep right now if I wanted to.” Despite already running direly low on sleep, she was so keyed up it took all her willpower to keep her leg from bouncing. She would probably make Sunday go insane if she started incessantly tapping her heel. 

“I could probably help with that,” Sunday hums, sitting up again. His expression has softened a bit after turning his attention from the card back to Stelle. Maybe she looks more tired than she feels. “Tuning, music, some combination of both?” he offers, then frowns a little when Stelle shakes her head.

“It’s alright,” Stelle laughs, waving her hand a bit. “I’m sure I’ll pass out at some point. I doubt I’ll make it another thirty-plus system hours without at least a little bit of sleep. What? ” she asks indignantly when Sunday raises an eyebrow. 

“I wouldn’t put it past you to stay up that entire time, actually,” Sunday says flatly, sliding the card back across the table at her. She tucks it into her jacket. “In any case, I’m not sure it would work unless you were both asleep and in the dreamscape simultaneously, and that’s going to be impossible to coordinate without communication.”

“Right…” Stelle sighs, choosing to ignore the vote of no confidence. Her thoughts drift. “Do you think he just, sleeps out in space like that?” 

Sunday blinks, taking a moment to catch up to the change in topic, and finding himself unsure how to proceed. “Khaslana? Mm, perhaps. You did mention seeing him in Pier Point recently, so you know he finds civilization every so often.”

“I know. I just know that he wasn’t anywhere when I saw him in my dream. It sounds…” Stelle’s voice quiets, and she thinks of another long-lost friend, found drifting through the void of space, “...it sounds lonely, to live that way.” 

Sunday watches her carefully, eyes flicking across her face. Stelle knows that expression, it’s his I’m about to try and do therapy at you expression, but he doesn’t speak up right away. Just tilts his head slightly–an invitation to say more. Despite herself, she sits up in her seat and continues. “When I knew him, he was someone who thrived around people, who would do anything to keep his friends together. Now he just seems afraid to be near us at all.” 

“He fears hurting you,” Sunday says, more a statement than a question, his hands folded politely on top of the table. Stelle nods. “But you think being here would do him more good than harm.”

“I do,” Stelle answers quickly. Again he stares quietly, so she continues. “After everything, he’s been alone for a greater part of his existence than he’s had anyone to support him. Billions of years, Sunday, none of us can even imagine what that’s like.”

“That kind of pain won’t be fixed overnight.”

“I know that, but you have to start somewhere!” Stelle insists, catching herself before her voice raises too far. The fire in her chest sparks to light, and she wills it to return to dormancy. Now is not the time for anger–Sunday hasn’t done anything to earn it. She knows he’s just worried. She quiets, but her voice remains firm. “There’s no way that forcing himself into solitude and throwing himself at his enemies without any rest is the only outcome for him. I refuse to believe that.” Not when that was how he first met his end.

Stelle shuts her eyes, and takes a deep breath before meeting Sunday’s gaze once again. “He won’t give himself the second chance he needs. He doesn’t think he deserves it.”

Sunday’s eyes soften with empathy. Stelle knows he understands that feeling far too well. The Astral Express was a second chance for him too. They sit in silence for a few moments, until Sunday breaks it with a small sigh. “I’m sorry,” he starts, his voice soft, “I didn’t mean for it to seem like I was pressing you, or doubting you. You were troubled–I wanted you to speak your thoughts.” 

“I thought you were done with confessionals,” Stelle laughs, and then waves her hands placatingly when Sunday’s expression darkens into an annoyed pout, “bad joke, sorry. I really do appreciate it.” Sunday huffs, shaking his head, annoyance reducing down to an exasperated smile, which Stelle unfortunately takes some delight in. “If the offer still stands, would you play something? Might, uh… help with the stress, I think.” 

The halovian’s eyes squint into a smile, and his wings flutter slightly as gets up from his seat. It’s not the first time he’s reminded her of Phainon, and she’s had the same thought in the other direction as well. Even this long after leaving Penacony and being freed from the thumb of his oppressive father figure, he’s still so eager to please. She’d feel bad about asking if he hadn’t offered first. 

Stelle doesn’t follow him right away. As Sunday gets situated in front of the replacement piano Himeko had found in one of the cargo cars, Stelle shuffles over to Shush and requisitions a few drinks before hurrying back. 

Sunday moves over on the bench as she approaches, leaving her plenty of room to sit if she wanted. She holds a bottle of Soulglad out to him as she sits down facing away from the keys, and Sunday huffs a laugh before taking the bottle from her. “I didn’t realize the bar stocked these,” Sunday muses, popping the cap and taking a small sip before setting the drink back down. The old electric keyboard wobbles a little when he does, and he moves the bottle to the nearby window ledge instead. 

“We’re close enough to Penacony that the station had some cases,” Stelle explains, uncapping her own bottle, “March and I swiped a few when we were restocking the other night. It’s not as good as the stuff in the dreamscape, but it hits the spot, y’know?”

“It’s hard to match the original,” Sunday agrees with a smile. He turns back towards the keyboard, aligning his fingers with the keys, and plays a few chords to test the notes. The sound isn’t nearly so rich as the Piano he’d had smuggled onto the train from Penacony, and Stelle can tell he isn’t so fond of it by the twitch of his wings. She’ll have to remind Himeko to add a new one to the budget. She knows Sunday won’t ever ask for it. “Do you have any requests?” 

“Mmm… surprise me?”

Sunday rolls his eyes, and obliges. Skilled hands quickly find a lively tune, and it’s one that Stelle recognizes even though she doesn’t quite remember all the lyrics–for once, not one of Robin’s. She watches Sunday play out of the corner of her eye. She’s always found it funny how despite his quiet and composed demeanor, he’s a very energetic musician, swaying slightly to keep rhythm with his song, wings bobbing along with his head. She lets the music drift by, quietly mumbling along to the lyrics she remembers, humming along to the ones she doesn’t. 

She closes her eyes, and her thoughts return to Phainon. She remembers sky blue eyes and snowy white hair both turned sun-gold, joyful smile turned sharp with anger, willpower borne from suffering used both as a blade and a shield. A man surrounded by friends, left alone in the end, over and over and over again. Even now, when he believes himself to be an engine of destruction and genesis, a vehicle for the determined wishes of others, Stelle knows he harbors a deep wish of his own. A star in the sky is never meant to shine alone.

Stelle takes a deep swig of her drink, underestimating the amount of carbonation it contained, and alarmed herself with a burp–the noise startles Sunday as well, his wings flapping a little in alarm as the next note or so hits off-key. She can’t help the barking laughter that escapes her at his expression, and he gives up on the song, laying his hands carefully on the keys as his shoulders shake from a poorly-suppressed bout of laughter. 

She almost doesn’t notice the buzzing of her phone through her mirth, and she fumbles it out of her pocket as she tries to rein in her laughter. Tapping through to the crew’s group chat, a grin splits her expression even further and she pumps her fist, spilling a little bit of her Soulglad in the process. Sunday shoots her a bemused look as he narrowly dodges the spattered drink, but smiles regardless. “Did they find a ship?”

“You bet your ass they did,” Stelle laughs, sending a half dozen cheering stickers into the group chat, myriad emotions fueling the fire in her chest. She shoves her phone into her pocket and grabs Sunday in an awkward one-armed hug; he doesn’t have time to even consider reciprocating it before Stelle lets go and starts to hurry up the stairs to her room, half-empty soda bottle in tow. “Thanks for the talk, Sunday!” she shouts over her shoulder, “I think you’ll like him when you meet him!” 

Sunday sits bewildered for a moment before the exasperated smile returns to his face, his wings giving a tiny flap to rearrange themselves into a comfortable position. “I’m sure I will.”

Chapter Text

Entry 160

It’s been a while since I skipped a day, but yesterday was a little too full of excitement to write. I met with Phainon in the dreamscape. We talked for a bit, and figured out a place to meet in reality. It took some convincing, but after the attack on the Express, we really needed to know he was okay, and he… didn’t seem okay, even in the dream.

We’re on our way to Asdana zeta now. The ship we borrowed is on the smaller side, but I guess everything feels small when you’re used to the Express. It makes up for it with speed, though, so we should be reaching the planet on time. Himeko’s keeping track of Phainon for us, so we know he’s on track too. It’s good to know my spur of the moment plan is working. We shouldn’t keep him waiting long, if at all.

We’re going to try and get some sleep. Welt and Dan Heng are going to take turns driving so no one dozes off at the wheel. We brought snacks, it’s gonna take us maybe a day to get there without warp. Hopefully it flies by.

Stelle places the gilded star card into the journal, and tucks them both back into her jacket. March was laying asleep across her and Dan Heng’s laps, so Stelle had once again used her shoulder as a desk to write on. It was funny how dead a sleeper March was–she hadn’t moved an inch the whole time, the only sign of life being her minuscule snores. Dan Heng was asleep too, his elbow braced on the back of their shared seat, head leaned against his hand, an attempt to avoid leaning his full weight against Stelle when he dozed off. Despite this, he still drifted into Stelle’s space somewhat. She didn’t mind, though unlike March, Dan Heng was a much lighter sleeper. She’d have to keep a bit more still with him sitting close. 

Turning her gaze to the front of the ship, she watches Welt make small adjustments to the controls. The ship they borrowed was advanced enough to get most of the way there on autopilot. He must feel Stelle’s eyes on him, as he turns the seat around to face her. Stelle holds a finger up to her face, glancing between Dan Heng and March before looking back up at Welt, and the older man laughs quietly before raising his eyebrows and motioning back at her. Stelle shakes her head a little, then raises both fists and shakes them quickly in front of her in an attempt to convey her energy levels, and Welt suppresses a laugh again. “Give it a try,” he whispers nearly inaudibly, and Stelle shrugs noncommittally. 

Welt shoots her a sympathetic look, and whispers again, “Are you nervous?”

Stelle shakes her head, pauses for a moment, then holds up a hand and wiggles it back and forth. 

Welt nods, understanding. “Worried for him more than us, then,” he whispers, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. Stelle sighs and nods, not sure she wants to have this conversation twice in one day, but Welt continues. “From what you three have told me, I understand your anxiety. To say he’s been put in a difficult situation is a… gross understatement. But,” he pauses, glancing between the three Nameless on the bench before settling his gaze back on Stelle, “I think, with the hand you’ve extended him, and his apparent willingness to take it, he’ll end up just fine in the end.” 

Stelle stares at Welt, gauging his words. There’s always a weight to the things he says, in moments like this, and she can see a wistfulness in his eyes. She remembers that same wistfulness from the night the three of them told him about Phainon, about their Khaslana, and she knows he must be thinking about the one in his own memory. “What happened to your Kaslana?” she asks softly, resting her hands on March’s shoulders. “You don’t have to tell if you don’t want to.” 

Welt sits up a little straighter, a gloved finger nudging his glasses back into place on his nose. “The weight of the world was placed on his shoulders, and he was forced to make an impossible choice on behalf of all humanity,” he says, and Stelle’s heart sinks at the parallel. She feels Dan Heng shift slightly next to her, but he doesn’t speak–he’s probably awake and pretending not to be. Welt doesn’t seem to notice, and continues. “The only option he felt he had left would have left us trapped in a world without strife, but also without a future to look forward to. He wanted to be proven wrong, needed proof that humanity could find another solution, and a group of heroes did just that.”

Her breath catches. A story with a similar start, a different ending, but the same goal–a final effort to preserve life. Stories don’t always repeat, but they often do rhyme, and this would be the third time the poem sounds familiar to her. “Did he make it?” Stelle asks quietly. 

Welt shakes his head. “It was…the ending he chose.” 

The words linger in Stelle’s mind for a while, and Welt gives her the space to consider them. The ending he chose. Khaslana, too, had been burdened with impossible choices, but when it came to his end… “Phainon chose to live,” Stelle finally mutters, and Welt nods. 

“Amphoreus may not have survived the fall of Irontomb, but he did, not just by the will and wishes of everyone in that world, but by his own wish too. Of this, I'm absolutely certain,” Welt says, his smile crinkling at the corners of his eyes, “and that choice? It matters .”

Stelle nods, a quick and shaky thing, willing herself to save the tears for later. It does. It does matter. “Thank you for telling me,” she whispers, and watches as Welt stands from the navigator’s seat to approach her. A gentle hand finds the top of her head, and she stifles a chuckle, instead turning a grateful smile up towards the other Nameless. Before he can remove his hand, she taps his arm to keep his attention, then points at a blanket tucked up in a compartment just out of her reach. Welt chuckles and retrieves it, unfolding it and draping it over the three in the seat in one smooth motion before once again taking his post at the front of the ship. 

There’s a tug on her sleeve as she nudges the end of the blanket out of March’s sleeping face, and she turns to see Dan Heng watching her with one eye cracked open, barely awake. Sleep, he mouths as he drops his hand, and Stelle rolls her eyes in response before leaning to rest her head on his shoulder. Tiredness catches up to her quickly enough, the warmth of her friends and the kindling flame in her chest gently nudging her into sleep. It mattered. You matter. We’ll be there soon.

//////

It doesn’t take long for Stelle to understand why this planet was so sparsely populated. 

Dan Heng had given them a crash course on the planet before departing, and once more as they approached its singular spaceport. They knew the surface of the planet was fairly saturated with memoria, which was unusual for a planet closer to the edge of Asdana’s memory zone. The space port was attached to a sprawling Intelligentsia Guild research facility, the largest manmade structure on the planet–the rest of the surface was mostly untouched, wild flora and fauna thriving under the haze of memoria. 

The researchers, thankfully, were too busy to ask too many questions about their arrival, especially after name-dropping their good friend Dr. Veritas Ratio. A couple of Nameless surely couldn’t cause too many problems if the good Doctor had vetted them first. A terrible assumption, really.

An intern hands Welt several memoria detectors and a location tracker in case of an emergency. Hopefully we won’t need those, Stelle thinks as the four Nameless step out of the facility. Her hand slips into the front of her jacket, fingers grazing the corner of the tarot card tucked into her journal. “Himeko said the signal already reached the planet, right?” 

Dan Heng nods, pulling out his phone and tapping through a few screens. “According to her, Khaslana reached the planet only a few hours before we did,” he reports, “she can’t track him on the planet’s surface with any great precision, but she said he should be relatively nearby.”

“That makes things way easier,” March sighs, relieved, “wouldn’t have been fun to trek halfway across this planet.” 

“I already said, it was the only option nearby!” Stelle huffs sheepishly, and pouts when March waves her off. 

“Now now, settle down,” Welt chuckles, then clears his throat, pulling the three younger Nameless’ attention back to himself. “We all remember the plan?” 

“Move towards the signal as a unit!” March chirps.

“Only separate if absolutely necessary,” Dan Heng says. 

“Retrieve Khaslana, and go right back to the ship–and call you if we’re unable to,” Stelle finishes. 

Welt nods, satisfied. “Good. I’ll remain with the ship and keep in active communication with both you and Himeko, so we can leave as soon as we’re finished. If any of you find yourselves in trouble, call for help, I will come help you.”

…

“So, why didn’t we just fly right to the spot?” March pouts, stepping over a stack of fallen branches. 

“Because we don’t know exactly where he landed,” Dan Heng answers, bemused, ducking under a hanging vine. “Besides, I think our surroundings should be enough of an answer to your question.”

Stelle looks up. It was true, this section of the planet was a fairly dense jungle, shrouded in a constant twilight by the dense canopy and the planet’s distant blue sun–darker now that night was beginning to fall. The perpetual shadow at the jungle floor meant there was less of a tangle of plant life than there could have been, though the terrain was still a little difficult to traverse. 

“He couldn’t have landed somewhere less covered in the biggest trees I’ve seen in my whole life?” March whines, shoulders sagging. Stelle almost wants to argue on Phainon’s behalf, but she knows March is complaining just to complain. They don’t have many ways to pass the time. She glances down at the memoria detector in her hands, and the number is still green–a safe amount. She remembers the researchers saying to take caution with yellow, and fully avoid red, for their own safety: increased exposure to memoria in an uncontrolled setting could cause both audio and visual hallucinations, and runs the risk of them becoming direly lost in the wilderness. She hopes Phainon landed somewhere green, for all their sakes.

“Judging from what Stelle said, he might not have had much of a choice by the time he arrived,” Dan Heng says, making her argument for her, “if he wanted to avoid being spotted by the settlement, this is about as close as he could get.” 

“I’m surprised they didn’t detect him at all, ” March muses, crossing her arms. “Guess they’re not scanning for more than the memoria.” 

“I heard one of the scientists say they had a momentary blip in their scanning systems a couple hours ago,” Stelle offers, “it might have been him jamming a signal on his way in.”

Dan Heng nods. “A brief equipment malfunction is less suspicious than an unexpected spike of path energy.” 

“He did turn off all those cameras in Pier Point,” March hums, agreeing. 

A series of beeps resound from their pockets as they receive a message in unison. March retrieves her phone first, squinting at the message. “Welt says we’re pretty close?” she conveys, scrolling down the apparently lengthy message, “Himeko’s having trouble triangulating Khaslana because his signal got weaker, so we might need to spread out anyway to help with boosting the signal.”

Dan Heng’s brow furrows in concern, and Stelle’s breath catches. “Did she say why she was losing the signal?” Dan Heng asks, beating Stelle to the question.

“I’ll ask,” March says, thumbs rapidly tapping away. “Hey–Hey! Don’t run off on your own!” 

Stelle has already quickened her pace, only slowed by Dan Heng’s sudden grab at her wrist. “We have to keep moving,” she insists, tugging against his grip, but he doesn’t release her.

“Just wait one more moment,” he urges, a worry in his eyes that she’s certain reflects hers. “Wait for Himeko’s answer. We’re going to have to split up anyway. It’s best to have a plan now instead of playing it by ear.” When he lets go of her wrist, she doesn’t move, and she feels a little guilty when he lets out a relieved sigh.

March catches up, shooting Stelle a sympathetic look before glancing down at her phone again. “She says it didn’t blink out or anything, just that it’s dimmer than before,” she relays, “but it hasn’t dimmed for a while. Do you think he did it on purpose?” 

“Conserving energy?” Dan Heng offers.

“Maybe,” Stelle grumbles, crossing her arms. They need to get moving. “Did she say anything about where we should be going?” 

“Oh! Right!” March peers down at the screen again. “We’re on the right track, it looks like. We just keep going north.”

“Let’s fan out then,” Den Heng suggests. “Stay within earshot for now, unless we’re told otherwise. You remember the signals.” The two other Nameless nod, and March types their plan into the group chat before tucking her phone away. 

The three each pick a direction–Stelle and March flanking Dan Heng while he continues in the center–but they don’t get very far before Stelle hears a different kind of beeping. She looks down at the memoria detector in her hand. The number has gone up, and has changed colors. Yellow. Shit. “Dan Heng?” she calls in his general direction, “is yours beeping too?” She receives a distant affirmative shout, and grimaces. 

Her brush with Fuli, while it didn’t grant her control of memoria the way a Dreamweaver or a Memokeeper have, gave her some sense of its presence–as they walk further, she can almost see it rolling along the ground like an intangible fog. Some moments later, she hears a single sharp whistle from her left that she answers with her own, hearing a quieter third from even further away. Good, no one’s gotten lost yet. Knowing her friends are still nearby, Stelle presses forward despite the trepidation. The shadows feel longer here as the memoria grows denser, grasping harmlessly at her ankles with claw-like shapes. She kicks at it, but it only rolls back for a few moments before rolling against her ankles again like the incoming tide. She tries to ignore it.

It doesn’t take long before she realizes something is accompanying her. The unknown figure flits through the air just out of the corner of her eye. Whatever it is has already made itself scarce when she turns to look for it. Another sharp whistle, about the same volume–she returns it. She knows which whistle to use if she needs help, but she thinks she already knows what chases her. 

Her suspicions are confirmed when she starts to hear whispered giggles and soft bells around her. This time, she turns quickly enough to see them–the ghosts of three little floating creatures, with large ears and equally large fluffy tails, ducking behind the trunk of a tree. She stops for a moment, and takes a deep breath to still her heart and quiet the embers that grow next to it. They’re just memories, she reminds herself, they can’t hurt anyone in reality. Take them for what they are. 

She resumes her walk, and the giggles follow. The sensor in her hands beeps more urgently, the number flashing orange, but she continues pressing forward. Another whistle comes, fainter this time, and she answers it in kind to confirm her safety. The clawing memoria at her ankles is starting to feel more tangible, now, and it slows her steps. Perhaps she shouldn’t have given the single whistle. Maybe she should turn back. She forges ahead nonetheless. 

The next time she turns, she makes eye contact with one of the apparitions, and it freezes in place while the others flee and hide–its form is tinted in memoria’s crystalline blue hue, but she recognizes the shape of its ears and the capelet around its shoulders as it flashes her a sheepish smile. Stelle holds a hand out to the memory of an old friend, and the fairy shakes its head, patting at its chest instead. Stelle’s hand follows the motion, and finds something has grown warm there. 

Suddenly, she understands–tucking the frantically beeping memoria sensor under her arm, she digs her journal out of her jacket pocket and plucks the tarot card from the pages. The card glows like it did in her dream, golden edges shining as though they’re catching the light of a yellow sun, crystalline blue shining between the golden etch of shooting stars. She meets the fairy’s eyes again, and it beams at her before flying forward a few feet, stopping, and glancing back at Stelle again. When she looks around, the fog of memoria that had been grasping at her ankles has receded, and the sensor’s beeping stops, returning to a safe green color. Black Swan, I really owe you one. Shoving the sensor into her pocket along with her journal, she instead digs out her phone, and rapidly types into the group chat one-handed as she hurries after the fairy. 

Stelle

[20:36] Did you guys bring your cards

Dan Heng

[20:36] I have mine. I think March has hers. Why?

Stelle

[20:36] They protect from the memoria

[20:37] Sensor reading went from orange to green when i took it out

[20:37] Might help us move faster

Dan Heng

[20:37] Good catch.

Welt

[20:37] Nice work. Be careful.

March

[20:38] I have mine! Let’s keep going! 

Stelle

[20:38] I found a friend. I’ll whistle if I find something.

March

[20:38] What do you MEAN a friend??

Himeko

[20:38] Whatever you’ve found has helped complete the signal triangulation. Stelle, you’re closest. Go northeast. Stay safe. 

Stelle commits the image of the map Himeko sends to memory before shoving her phone back into her pocket. Ahead of her, the fairy changes course, following the exact path the navigator directed her to. At the edges of the fog of memoria, more shapes take form–countless fairies, leaving behind trails of sparkling stars in endless colors; they dance and sing around her as she leaps over fallen trees and skips across a creek in pursuit of the singular fairy ahead of her. The card in her hand warms further, glowing like an approaching dawn, like the star that’s taken residence in her heart. She holds it tightly to her chest as she runs. 

A distant whistle rings out somewhere behind her. She returns it, hoping the breathless sound reaches her friends. They have Himeko’s map, and their own cards. They’ll catch up soon. 

Something shines far ahead of her and she wills her feet to move faster, but there’s only so much she can do when the terrain fights her for every step. The jungle grows denser, but the fairies light her path, hovering near gaps in the trees and warning of dangers on the ground. There is a rumbling roar somewhere behind her, and she skids to a stop, heart thundering in her chest with adrenaline and fear. She lets out a single sharp whistle, and receives two individual whistles in return. Whatever the noise had been was of no concern. She gathers her wits about her and begins running again. 

It feels like an eternity passes, but also like no time has passed at all. The ground begins to clear before her, but the air, dense with memoria, grows heavier even with the protection of the star tarot. The shine before her slowly becomes a golden glow, the fog of memoria catching the light and glowing like the sun finally rose. Her limbs ache, but Stelle pushes through the exhaustion. The fairies, drifting into the clouds, dissolve and reform, taking the shape of men, women, children; Stelle dodges past them out of habit, even knowing that she couldn’t touch them if she wanted to. 

She spares a glance at their faces as she passes by; at first she recognizes none of them, but it doesn’t take long before she sees a familiar face, and another, and another. The woman from the grocery stall who offered kindness when they were strangers. The pickpocket girl who sought comfort in the words of her god. The blacksmith who gave his life to buy them precious minutes of time to escape the tide. The fire in Stelle’s chest roars to a blaze, and the exhaustion leaves her limbs as her legs carry her forward still, chasing that solitary fairy through the growing crowd. Is this memory his, or mine?

Familiar faces continue to pass her by. The spirithief grins, the scarred veteran salutes her, a pack of colorful chimeras chases at her heels. The professor steps aside and applauds his approval. The mortician dips her head with a smile, the healer urges her forward with a mirrored grin. Triplicate smiles and faint cheers make Stelle’s heart soar. The thief beckons the wind forward, the weaver lights the path ahead with threads of gold. The empress stands aside and bows for her. The musician dances across her path, as if announcing her arrival, her violin’s song but a whisper in the night air. The light ahead grows brighter for a moment before dimming again, and she follows the fairy into a clearing–where an outstretched arm blocks her path, and she skids to a stop before it. She looks up to meet the last prince’s eyes, and he slowly lowers his gauntleted hand before offering her a crooked smile. He glances over his shoulder into the clearing, and his mouth moves, but no words follow. Instead, she follows the golden mirage’s gaze, follows the path of that final fairy, only to see–

Him. 

Khaslana kneels in the middle of the small clearing, the branches and grass around him smoking from his residual heat. His halo shines with a faint light behind his head, and blackened wings drape over his shoulders like a cloak. He grips something tightly in his hands, and though Stelle can’t see it from here, she already knows what it is as she spies a faint silver glow from between his fingers. She watches that lone little fairy push towards him, as if fighting a tide. 

Stelle glances back up at the spectral prince, and he nods his head to one side, stepping out of her path. She smiles at the memory, grateful for his care even now. She still can’t tell if this is her memory, or Khaslana’s, but it doesn’t matter in the end. She wipes at her tears with the heel of her hand as she strides past the prince, the rustling of earth and leaves under her feet the only sound in the clearing. After a few steps, she glances behind, and the silent crowd is gone. 

The fairy stops a foot short of Khaslana, sinking to the ground as though it remembered the pull of gravity. The little creature looks up at its hero, reaches forward with one minuscule paw and rests it on the ground in front of him; Khaslana’s shoulders shake, and he bows forward even further, his wings closing in around him. One blink to the next, and the fairy is gone, a gentle girl sitting in its place. She lifts her hand to stroke at his feathers, and his shoulders shake again, but this time, he lifts his head to meet the memory’s eyes. Stelle can’t see what she says to him, but she can hear his quiet sob, and see his head shake as he reaches forward–his hand passes through her shoulder. The memory of Cyrene turns back to look at her and offers her a smile, despite the deep grief in her eyes. She speaks, but like the others, no words come–and yet, Stelle feels her plea reach her soul. 

Please, take care of him. Bring him home.

Another blink, and the memory is gone. Instead, she meets Khaslana’s gaze as myriad emotions cross his face at once–grief, confusion, joy, fear. Stelle slowly crosses the clearing, star tarot held close to her chest, and sits in the space the memory had occupied. Khaslana watches her approach, an apprehension in his golden gaze, a tension in his shoulders as though he was ready to flee at any moment. Stelle opens her mouth to speak, but she finds herself at a loss for words. 

Khaslana breaks the silence, a shuddering exhale preceding a nearly inaudible request: “Please, say something.” 

Stelle’s heart breaks at the plea in his voice, and she leans forward. “Aeons, I’m sorry, it’s me,” she says, reaching out towards his arm. Her hand meets his skin and she nearly reels back from the sheer heat he generates, but the pain in his eyes pushes her forward, and she reaches down for his hands instead, fingers grazing over the silver border of her tarot card’s twin. The heat from his gauntlets radiates through her glove, but she refuses to flinch away again. “It’s me,” she repeats, voice soft, “I’m here. It’s real this time.” 

Khaslana stares down at her hand where it rests on top of his, then to her other hand where she holds her gilded card. He lifts one hand to hers, blackened and armored fingers grazing the edge of that card, expression softening into something like relief. “So it is…” he finally mutters. 

Silence returns for a few long moments, weighing down on their shoulders until Stelle shrugs it off once again. “Did you consider my offer?” she asks softly, squeezing his hand. She’s adjusted to his warmth, now. 

The black claws of his gauntlet carefully wrap around her other hand, and she watches the dark metal click and slide as he moves. She doesn’t remember his hand looking like that. She lifts her gaze back to his face, and starts to note the differences–his eyes and hair were still sun-bright, but the giant halo that floated behind his head was nowhere to be seen, replaced with a smaller one, in the familiar shape of the worldbearer’s sigil. His wings had gone dark, sharp and metallic feathers devoid of golden light. He was both like, and unlike her dream–but perhaps her own memory of him altered his visage within the dreamscape.

“I did,” he rumbles, wings finally uncurling from his shoulders, drooping to the ground. He lists forward suddenly, and Stelle raises her hands to catch him, bracing for the heat–but her hands do not burn. 

“...What do you want to do?” she asks in a whisper, wrapping her arms around him and guiding his head to rest on her shoulder. His armored hand weakly grasps at her jacket. She thinks she knows his answer, but she wants to hear it from him.

It’s a while before he speaks again, voice heavy with exhaustion. “I’m… tired,” he rasps, cradling his silver card to his chest, “I can’t… don’t want to be alone, anymore.” He chuckles, a sad, pained sound dragged from deep in his chest. Stelle holds him closer. He breathes in as though he means to continue speaking, but seems to think better of it, and exhales it in a deep sigh instead. 

Stelle leans her head against his, and mumbles into his hair, “It must be lonely out there, alone among the stars.” His grip on her jacket tightens, and her heart grows heavy. “Come with us?” 

Another deep breath, followed by a small nod. “Okay,” he breathes, “okay.” 

Her breath catches when he slumps against her further, and she struggles to bear his weight for just a moment. “Khaslana? Phainon??” Panic finds her when he doesn’t respond, and she presses a hand against his chest–it still rises and falls with life, still radiates that solar warmth. The air rushes out of her lungs in sheer relief. She repositions herself further, though she’s unable to move him very far, his hand still tightly gripping her jacket even in sleep. 

With a mumbled apology, she brings a hand up to her mouth and whistles thrice, waiting for the twinned responses from the other two Nameless before turning her attention back down to the man in her arms. Deliverer, Ravager, Worldbearer, Nameless Hero, child of Destruction, Partner. The only other person in the cosmos who knows what it’s like to have a star burning in one's chest. Stelle brushes a strand of hair out of his face and watches him for just a few moments. “It’s been far too long since I last saw you at ease,” she mumbles, knowing he can’t hear, “You worked yourself too hard, like always. Thank you for accepting that you need the rest.” 

It doesn’t take long before the sound of footsteps reaches her ears. She looks up to see the silhouette of a crystalline dragon dissolve into mist, and her two friends rushing closer from the edge of the treeline. Dan Heng pauses some ways away to furiously type into his phone, while March slides to a stop next to Stelle, kneeling down with naked worry all over her face. “Is he gonna be okay?” she hisses, holding up her hands as though she’s unsure what to do with them. 

“I think so,” Stelle hums, “he’s just asleep.” March drops her hands with a relieved sigh, and lies fully on the ground as exhaustion catches up to her. Stelle is starting to feel tired too. 

Dan Heng runs up to the three of them, phone in hand, out of breath. “I’ve sent Welt our location, he’s going to try and pick us up here.” He sits down heavily nearby, and runs a hand back through his hair, unsticking it from his face. “Is… is he alright?” 

Stelle nods. “Just tired,” she confirms again, a smile coming to her face, “taking a well-earned nap.” 

“I think the rest of us also deserve a nap,” March groans from the ground, and Dan Heng chuckles despite himself. 

“A nap sounds nice…” Stelle muses, then something catches the light out of the corner of her eye: in the grass lies Khaslana’s silver-edged card–it must have slipped from his grasp when he passed out. She plucks it from the ground and looks it over. It is a perfect twin of hers, etched in shining silver. Even the wish inscribed on the card was identical: May this memory guide you back home.

Tears prick at the corner of her eyes. She doesn’t know if she would have believed Black Swan if she had told her where the cards came from, but, she thinks she understands the truth now. 

The hum of an engine pulls her from her reverie, and she once again wipes her tears away with the back of her hand. She can see the bright speck of the ship in the distance, speeding towards them over the treeline. 

“Time to go home, Phainon.”

Chapter Text

It was dark when he awoke. 

Alone in space again, same as he always was, though the stars felt further away today. It didn’t feel quite right. Khaslana’s wings stretched from his back and caught the distant starlight–it’s enough to allow him to resume his rocketing journey through the cosmos. He should have been close to the next star system. It would be easy enough to rest, recharge, and hunt down the next Legion fleet. 

Khaslana is used to flying for hours on end with little to see. There’s a lot of space between the stars… but at the speed he moves, they should still drift past at a leisurely pace. 

The stars were not moving. His destination had grown no closer. 

His wings flared out behind him, and he dragged himself to a stop—if he was ever moving at all. He summoned his blade to his hand in a flash of light, the solar glow in his chest flaring with his displeasure. This was clearly some kind of trick, or a trap. But who was responsible? 

“Show yourself!” he called out into the void, but as expected, he received no answer. Khaslana growled in frustration, the fire in his chest threatening to spill from his mouth like a solar flare. “If you speak now, and leave me be, then you won’t have to burn when I flush you out. I won’t suffer your games.” 

Silence. And then, the loudest noise he’d ever heard. It took everything he had not to drop his blade to cover his ears, though his free hand still shot up to his head; the cacophonous sound was so violent, it made him feel nauseous. He didn’t know that was a sensation this body could still experience. He hadn’t realized he’d scrunched his eyes closed in reflex and opened them again, gritting his teeth through the horrific sound as he hunted for the cause… and was met with a horrifying sight. 

The stars were getting closer. Fast. The sound was the roar of his universe collapsing–the anguished cries of trillions of people meeting their ends as black and red void dragged everything together towards a single point. Towards him. 

The blaze in his chest flared into an inferno as fury and terror found him all at once. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Not out here. Not anymore.

Khaslana’s blade floated in the void when he released it, not bothering to dismiss it–he had no time. Instead, he raised his hands, and the halo behind his head began to burn with the intensity of a million stars. Maybe a large enough release of energy could stop this, or even stall it. If he could save even one person by giving everything he has over into the nova, it would have been worth it.

But the blaze did not slow the collapse. The screaming crunch reached him in mere moments.

The red void found the expanse of his wings, and began to rot them away bit by bit, despite the solar flare trying to keep it at bay. His legs, his hands–he felt like he was burning, wasting away into ashes again. The collapse found his halo and snuffed out its light, plunging him into the deepest darkness he’s ever felt. The pressure was so powerful he couldn't breathe. The flames in his chest started to gutter out, a blaze cut off from oxygen. A mocking laugh resounded in his ears as the darkness crushed him without remorse.

Is this what it feels like when a star dies?

Without warning, the weight leaves his body and air finds his lungs. His chest heaves as his eyes snap open, then immediately squint shut against the bright light above him. He’s suddenly aware of gravity, and that he is laying on something soft, despite his head feeling like it’s still spinning through space. What happened? Where am I? 

A quiet voice speaks over him, one he doesn’t immediately recognize or understand, still reeling too violently from the memory of the crushing void to parse words, much less try to translate them. Why do I feel so heavy? He shifts where he lies, and suddenly becomes very aware that he’s not in his spacefaring form–the weight of his wings is absent from his back, along with the residual heat from his halo. Lifting his hand over his head, he holds it over his eyes so he can squint up at the speaker.

He is met with the silhouette of a man looking down at him, outlined by a light above them both. A man with grey hair, and wings protruding from his head.

You.

A snarl rips its way out of his throat as Khaslana lunges upward, instinctively reaching for his torturer’s neck, feeling that blaze light up in his chest again. Before his hand can make contact, he finds himself stopping short, his vision suddenly blurring at the edges, myriad colors invading his peripheral vision as the center of his gaze suddenly comes into clear focus.

Before him does indeed stand a grey haired man with wings protruding from his head, though unlike before, there were now three identical pairs, flared out around his head to form a circle. The stranger’s golden halo gleams with the same rainbow of colors that ringed Khaslana’s vision, and despite his golden eyes being wide with fear, the winged man’s brows furrow together with determined focus. Those eyes bore into him, and Khaslana can see his own gold halo reflected back at him in them. 

The man speaks, and Khaslana doesn’t immediately understand him. It takes another moment before his mind catches up, processing the language the stranger is speaking, translating it in an instant. “I don’t think this is necessary,” the stranger continues with a quiet firmness when Khaslana’s arm does not lower. The lack of mockery in his tone gives Khaslana pause—this isn’t who he thought it was. 

The colorful blur at the edge of Khaslana’s vision lingers, and he shakes his head. Is that stranger doing this? Khaslana draws his hand back and presses the heel of his hand into his eye, his head feeling like it’s about to burst along with the flames in his chest. “ Stop that, ” he hisses through gritted teeth, the language strange in his mouth, the black claws of his other hand tightly gripping at the surface he was sitting on. While it’s not the same crushing sensation as his dream–that unforgiving vacuum snuffing out a flame–the colors are starting to feel like his mind is being smothered with a blanket. “ Get out of my head .”

“Not until I know for certain you will not return to violence,” the man insists, voice steady despite the tremor in his wings. Khaslana can’t tell if they shake from fear, or from overexertion. “This is not the place for it. Please lie down, there is no need to fight here.” The colors grow heavier the more this man speaks, the urgency in his voice adding more and more weight; Khaslana knows he’s trying to force him to calm down. Who are you? Where am I? These questions don’t come out. His limbs feel heavy, but he moves regardless, again lifting his hand to reach towards his presumed captor. The winged man stiffens, taking the slightest step back, eyes firmly fixed on him, as though blinking or looking away would spell the death of him. At this rate, it very much just might. Khaslana admires his bravery, or perhaps it’s simply stubbornness. You should value your life more.

Before Khaslana’s fingers can reach the man’s scarf, there is a noise from somewhere behind him: a hiss and a clunk of a door opening, and a gasp–this voice, he knows.

A familiar black-gloved hand enters his vision, carefully encircling his wrist. Though she doesn’t quite recoil at the temperature of his skin, her grasp is slow and gentle as she tugs his hand away from the winged stranger. The winged man finally breaks eye contact to glance aside at the new arrival, and Khaslana could easily break this hold to reach forward, but the fire is starting to die down. The situation has changed–or perhaps, he had just grievously misunderstood it to start with. 

The man nods, and three pairs of wings converge into one, the rainbow glow fading from his halo. Khaslana’s gaze lowers as the man steps away, and he lets his arm drop–or rather, he would have, if it wasn’t already being held by someone else. The rainbow glow begins to leave his vision as well, and clarity returns. He hears a mutter of “please be careful” as the man leaves, but he finds himself out of energy to care about seeking a reprisal. Instead, something heavy settles into his chest as his defensive flare dies down, the weight leaving his mind and finding his heart instead. That was too much, he thinks, shrinking in on himself, he was just scared. I did too much.

“Hey.”

That familiar voice pulls him out of his thoughts. It hits him that he’s sitting on a bed when she sits down next to him and the mattress dips down to accommodate her. He looks down at his hand, still held carefully in both of hers now, and takes a shuddering breath. Am I still dreaming? Something smells like it’s burning. It’s all too much. All he manages to croak out is a quiet “Hey, partner.”

Stelle huffs what he recognizes as a disbelieving laugh, just out of his peripheral vision. He doesn’t dare to look up. I don’t like Asdana, he thinks. The memory zone has only been exacerbating his nightmares, dragging both ancient and new memories forward into the light, events and emotions he wishes he could burn and bury and keep out of sight. I don’t want this to be another dream.

“I feel like it’s kind of silly to ask if you’re doing alright,” she begins carefully, rubbing circles in the back of his hand with her thumb. “Did you have a nightmare?”

Khaslana looks away from their joined hands, looks anywhere else but at her. Am I still that easy to read? He finds his lap covered by a blue and pink blanket, the same one currently fisted into his right hand. He releases his grip on it, only to find holes and scorch marks where super-heated claws dug into the fabric. The pit in his chest grows deeper. Maybe it would be better if this was a dream. He takes a deep breath before he speaks, but once again barely manages a word. “Sorry…” 

“Hey, it’s okay,” she soothes, gently squeezing the hand she’s holding. “We can get a new one.”

He takes another breath. “Not… about the blanket.”

“Sunday will be okay too,” she assures, her thumb resuming its circles on the back of his hand, “it’s not the first time he’s been a little startled.”

“That feels like an understatement,” he mumbles, the words tumbling out before he can consider keeping the thought to himself. His voice sounds rougher than he’d like it to. It’s been a long time since he’s spoken to someone else.

“You can apologize to him later, if you want,” she murmurs, voice gentle. The motion of her fingers on his hand is soothing, and he tries to will himself to accept the comfort, but it’s easier said than done. Right now, he just feels guilty. If this is real, I picked a hell of a fucking way to start this reunion. How ridiculous of me.

Suddenly, one of her hands is on his shoulder. She should feel warm, but nothing much feels warm to him anymore. The reminder smothers the blaze further. 

“Hey,” she says again, her voice soft, “It’s really going to be alright. I promise.” 

He sucks in yet another breath through his teeth, his free hand balling into a fist in his lap, trying to spare the blanket further damage. “That’s a big promise to make,” Khaslana mutters quietly, not even sure it was loud enough to hear. Her hand leaves his shoulder and her fingertips find his cheek. He stiffens at the touch, but loneliness defeats fear, and he offers no resistance when she guides him to turn his head. His gaze remains downcast, but he can still see most of her–one leg tucked up under the other so she can sit sideways on the bed, white shirt tucked into a black skirt, yellow trim on her glove as one hand remains in her lap, gently holding his own hand. I can’t decide if this dream is kind, or cruel.

“I think I’ve heard of bigger promises,” she says, and he can hear the smile in her voice even as she draws her hand away from his face, returning it to her lap to cradle his hand. “And if I remember right, you did manage to pull through.”

“And which one was that?” Khaslana asks, his voice nearly catching in his throat. He wants to look up. He fears the dream will shatter if he does. 

“That we’d see each other again, after it was over.” 

The fire in his chest rekindles. A half-hearted chuckle escapes his lips, and he nearly winces at how pained it sounds. “I did promise that, didn’t I?” 

“And you’ve never made a promise you couldn’t keep.”

“I know that isn’t true.” 

Stelle hums. “You kept the ones you made to me, at least. And the ones you didn’t, weren’t for lack of trying. The odds were stacked against you.” 

Another half-hearted laugh. 

“But you pulled through,” she continues, her voice growing soft again, “and you still kept that last promise.” 

He knows she’s difficult to look at when she’s being earnest. Once, someone told him that the two of them made the same kind of expression when they were being genuine, and that it was insufferable–he didn’t understand what they meant until he was on the receiving end of it. He should look at her. It’s cruel to her not to. It’s cruel to deny himself the knowledge of whether he was dreaming or not. 

Khaslana takes a breath, and looks up.

Stelle looks just like he remembers her. Gray hair frames her face. A warm smile makes her eyes squint with joy when her gaze meets his–golden, like a hero's blood. Golden, like his own eyes. If he could cry, he knows he would. Instead, he leans forward, and a surprised exhale leaves her as he rests his head on her shoulder. When the moment of surprise passes, she laughs softly again, and releases his hand to instead wrap her arms tightly around him, one hand around his middle, the other resting in his hair. 

“This is real,” he whispers into her shoulder, winding his arms around her and pulling her close, his voice cracking with the buildup of tears that refuse to fall, “you’re here.” Over her shoulder, on a table across the room, he spots a familiar silver-edged card. May this memory guide you back home.

“You made it, Phainon,” she whispers, leaning her head against his, and he swears her voice is straining under the threat of tears too. “You made it. Welcome to the Astral Express.”