Endosymbiosis

24. Chrysotherapy

Third circle of the Empire
Pacifia

I woke up... I wasn't expecting that.

I felt the comfort of clean clothes and soft blankets around me, so different from the metallic, bloody cold that was in my last memories. I lifted my eyelids slowly to the golden blur of the walls that surrounded me, gleaming beneath the light that flooded the room through an opening in the wall. I turned sideways on the bed and then found Kadi, asleep as if for the first time in his life. He was also wearing clean clothes that didn't belong to him, and the refreshing scent his body emanated almost alone took away all my worries. Almost. I poked him.

"Kadi?" I whispered. "What happened?"

After the shot, my memories had become a confused blur of pain, red and gold; and I needed his mind to clear up the past.

"Why are you up so early?" He mumbled. "Enjoy paradise..." And then he snuggled deeper into the covers. I couldn't help but smile, but at least he had his eyes closed.

"What is this "paradise"?"

"A place as good as dreams..."

I raised an eyebrow, which he didn't see.

"I wouldn't call the darkness behind my eyes 'heaven', then." I poked him in the ribs and he peeked at me with one eye. "My best dreams come when I'm awake."

"You say that because you don't know what happens on mine..." His fingertip reached out to draw pictures on my forearm. "You don't know what I do..."

I bit my lip to keep from saying I wanted to know. And when he looked at me, I let go of them to say:

"I just wanted to remind you that dreams aren't real, Kadi..."

"It's true... But reality can always be better..." He started to move closer, but I tortured him with my distance.

"How did we get here?"

He stretched and only opened his mouth after seeing my demanding look:

"We were rescued."

"By the Empire?"

"By the pacifists."

I raised an eyebrow. One more group involved in that war to get their claws on us... What could they want?

Kadi touched my arm, snapping my attention back to the safety of that golden environment and smoothing the worry lines on my forehead.

"We can trust them. They are helping the revolution."

"And why can we trust the revolution?"

He opened that crooked smile of his.

"Do you prefer to trust the Aulics, who tried to throw us into a sun?" It hadn't been them; it wouldn't make sense... Only the disease could want to destroy what was in me. "There don't seem to be many options."

I leaned over him, my whisper warm in his ear:

"We create our own options, Kadi."

And then I pushed him out of bed.

• • • ֍ • • •

At the edge of the bed a dress awaited me, an elegant piece entirely different from the Kadi's leather clothes I wore. Did the pacifists really think I was worthy of it? And, looking around at the golden walls and the opulence ingrained in every square inch of the environment before me, I wondered how the pacifists could be so rich...