Endosymbiosis

48. Fatigue

Venerna was dead.

And we were lost in the immensity, a fleet of nomads surrounded by everything and nothing, traveling aimlessly through space.

A solid silence filled the air inside the Hasta, full of questions we couldn't answer. What would we do now? What would the revolution become? Where could we hide when the Aulics were everywhere, stalking our every move? There was nowhere to run.

Korrok was sitting in the pilot's chair, bent over the dashboard. He had done so much for that city to rise from the dust, so many efforts and sacrifices... Only to have to suffocate it and abandon it in the depths of a black sea. We had risen so high, only to fall down again, each slip so painful that it would bring us to an unrecoverable end if we failed one more time.

And then there would be no one else to carry any hope.

After a few traveling noxdiems, Korrok managed to retrieve the ship Bleine had once given us and I parked the Hasta inside it. The first thing I did when I landed in that gigantic vehicle was to escape everyone and look for a bathtub. I wasn't dirty, after being redone by the fevine, but I didn't feel clean... There was a lot in my depths that I wanted to wash away.

I found a white marble bathtub built into the floor of one of the ship's bathroom and filled it with water, colder than I'd expected. I dove naked into the liquid, head leaning against the backstop and mind flying way beyond, full of memories that could almost stain the water with their darkness.

Was there more I could have done in the Battle of Venerna? Was there anything I could have done before I set foot there to rewrite my mistakes, the first time I didn't stay to fight when I should have?

Why did I run? Everything could have been so different if I had stayed... Maybe I would have died; or perhaps I would have lived a lifetime without the feeling that I had lost more than I could ever regain.

I held my breath and slid down, letting the water envelop me in its seductive darkness. It was almost as if it was a barrier, so none of those thoughts could ever get through to reach me. I just wanted to live in it; to fall asleep in it; and to never wake up again...

But I would be running away again.

I let better memories make my mind their home, before I had too many dangerous desires. Distant sounds reached me from the past: Doxy's laughter, animated conversations around the campfire at the top of the hill, toasts, promises, a lifetime that had passed me when I thought I was no longer living...

I came back to the surface and found myself stared at by the determination in the eyes of my own reflection.

I wouldn't run away again.

A knock on the door brought me back to reality and Doxy's face popped through the gap.

"Busy?" She asked.

"Not for you."

With a smile and cautious steps Doxy entered the room, closing the door behind her.

"How are you feeling?"

"Too good for a man who should be dead..." I smiled.

Doxy sat on the white edges of the tub and gave me a crooked smile as she realized I wasn't dressed. My expression mirrored hers for a moment, but then my eyes dropped to the patterns that stretched from her fingertips to the elbow.

Korrok told me what she did to save me; he told me about her hands beating my heart and the scars she left on her skin to rescue me from an acidic ocean... Doxy valued me more than I thought I was worth, and now that I looked at her, I didn't know if I could measure how much I would give myself to danger for her, too.