Aurora Cycle Oneshots

Late Night (Kal-Auri)

Kal's POV

"Kal, can I talk with you?" she was at my door, the light in my never ending dark, my be'shmai. Her voice was laced with fear and restraint, with sadness. The sound of it felt like a cold chasm breaking open in my chest as I took her in, standing there in her jumpsuit, her hand reaching across herself to hold her other elbow. She was guarding herself.

"Of course, be'smhai, what is it?" I had sat up now, my eyes following every dart of her beautiful, mismatched eyes, as she scanned my room, fighting if she should go through with whatever she's planning.

She raises her chin in defiance of her clashing emotions, her mind a mix. As my be'shmai trails towards me, she starts to slow as she nears, growing more hesitant as she looks up at me from under her lashes. I shift to the side of where I'm seated, on my bed, and watch as she climbs in after me, adjusting herself until her head is laying on my chest, looking at where my hand rests on my stomach, focusing on it intently as she curled her hands up between her chest and my side. I heard a ragged breath escape her, and it felt as if everything was starting to shake around us, worry rising up, commanding my hand to lift to the side of her face, gently pulling her chin up so that her eyes would meet mine.

"Aurora?" I whispered, uncertain. She smiled at the use of her name, her voice coming out quiet and timid.

"I miss them... so much," she said, her eyes filling up with tears that threatened to spill over. "My sister could have done so much, been so much, and I wasn't there to watch her become the greatest composer alive. I wasn't there when she named her goddamn daughter Jie-Lin. After me, Kal. My niece never knew her aunt. My father never knew I was sorry. Instead he's overrun with the fucking Ra'haam, and there is not a thing I can do about it. He's lost. Just like Cat, just like everybody. People keep disappearing, keep getting hurt, and I keep on being the only person that makes it through."

Her voice was breaking on every second word now, her tears running down her freckled cheeks as her face twisted in anguish, my heart twisting with it. "I'm a hundred and fifty years past my due date, Kal, at least. I should be with them, wherever they are. I'm not meant to be here, you all know it, I'm not meant to be-" she paused to suck in a staggering breath, her hands shaking as she curled tighter around them, trying to hide her grief. She made herself so small, that it was almost too easy to wrap my arms around her and hold her while she sobbed, my hand running through her hair and down her back.

"He knows you're sorry, my be'shmai. They loved you, so much, and you can't blame yourself for not being there, you couldn't have been." I touched my lips to her four head as another soul-shattering whimper escaped her. While we had all been so preoccupied with doing what we thought was right, never once did we let her fall into her grief, her loss. She needed to, she was breaking, and I couldn't bear it.

I kept running my hand through her brown and white hair, trailing my hand down the length of her spine as her breathing started to slow, grow even. Her hands stopped shaking, eyes fluttering as she drifted off to sleep. She would be okay. I turned towards her, encompassing her in my warmth, her small frame fitting easily against mine, even as she was still curled against it. My be'shmai. Safe, with me.

The screech of metal woke me, my chin rising from where it had rested against my chest, hands bound above my head as I could barely kneel, the scene around me phasing in and out around me as things gradually came into focus, the pain reaching me once more, it's presence an unwelcome reminder of reality. I looked up into the face of my father, the one who dared to harm my be'shmai. She was somewhere on this warship as well, being hurt as my father did to me. 

The thought alone made my blood boil as I pulled at my restraints, for the hundredth time surely, as if this time would result in anything different. I didn't care as I glared up at him, my father, the Starslayer.

The one person who could truly take everything from me.