Empyrean Iris Story Collection Vol. 4

A Living Piece

Adam had always been an optimist, not the naive kind of optimist that hopes everything is going to be alright all the time, but that kind of optimism that assumed he could make it through anything. Perhaps it was less optimist and more a sense of balance that he believed in. Where there are highs there are lows, where there is evil there is good, and where there is pain there is joy. Light cannot exist without dark Yin and Yang sort of logic. Adam had experienced some terrible lows in life, but he had always been comforted by his optimistic assumption that there had to be some balance, his lowest lows had to be balanced out by his highest highs, and the lower he went his only assumption was that there might be an amazing high waiting for him later.

Up to his point in his life that rule had remained true enough. It had started out small of course, his poor school experience balanced out by a food family, his high school experience turning into his training at the academy. Those joyful years learning to fly and meeting aliens balanced right back out with the Drev war, and the incredible low he had hit with the loss of his leg. Getting his ship, losing his eye, meeting sunny and later falling in love with her. All of this and then the birth of his son which was such a high high he could now see that it required an incredibly low low.

One he wasn't sure he'd be able to come back from.

He didn't want to leave a widow, or a fatherless child.

Two now since his sacrifice had been successful, but what was to stop Kazna from trying again.

He was only aware of the first few minutes following the trident entering his chest, acutely aware of the way it had torn through one of his lungs and, likely fatally, impacted his heart or close enough to it. He had lain there as Sunny stepped over his body, hot blood beginning to pool under his torso. She hadn't looked at him, but neither bothrered nor surprised him.

She was a Drev, having her battle partner fall in combat was not uncommon, and the only response that would have seemed optional to her must have been to attack.

He wouldn't have had it any other way.

And then

Things began to fade and the world around him flickered. When he closed his eyes, his mind sort of... collapsed, some unseen barrier in his head losing its strength and falling away to let him mind drift outward. Perhaps it was the beginning of the slow degradation of his mind, but that thought was only present as a whisper as his consciousness spilled across the open floor, rolling in a slow inevitable wave like the viscus spreading of honey.

It was Krill's mind he touched first, Followed by Mitzen, and Conn, and all the way up until he reached Sunny. Her thoughts were familiar to him, comforting like his favorite song, and with a certain cadence personal only to her. It was a driving rhythm but at the same time very steady.

At this point he was too far gone to really be aware of where he was or what he was doing, but her mind was familiar, comforting, and in an effort to escape a lingering fear and pain, he found himself drawn to her, sinking into her thoughts like warm scalding water.

There were thoughts on the surface, just the flash of battle, more instinct than thought. Just the rhythm that came with combat.

And that was nice too

And there was anger.

And fear,.

He sunk deeper, deeper than he had ever gone before, unaware at ont point that it had been possible searching for something soft or calm. The memory that he found was neither but it was one he could certainly linger upon... because he hadn't seen it before

***

Nearly ten months, ten months and the days seemed to stretch into weeks. WIthout a sun overhead to track the passage of time, Sunny had always felt that Arcadia moved slower, somehow. She leaned against the glass of the window in the spiral tower and watched. Below her on the street people crawled like insects over the slowly growing metropolis.