Endosymbiosis

29. Mourning

After losing her so many times, I couldn't believe I would never see her again. It was almost like she could burst through the door of the room I was hiding in at any time, just to call me to one of our special sunday lunches... Our last one was a long time ago, before the cure and the Oasis, but deep down I had always ended up preparing myself for the next one, because I had never been able to believe that there would not be another... Until now.

And it had all been the Aulics' fault.

Maybe I should let that disease consume their Empire... But I couldn't; not when there was still so much worth saving. And I no longer knew if there was much more to me than that purpose to accomplish.

I just needed not to give up a little longer.

When the first ray of light hit my face, I was long awake. Did I even slept? The memories mingled with the dreams, and even with my eyes closed I couldn't escape those honey jewels on her face, empty, silent, broken...

I picked up my pieces and got up slowly. In the corner of the bed a white opalescent dress was waiting for me, made of a fabric as light as clouds that I let run down over my body and fall in a train of mist. Apparently the metriona had made an effort to find me in that gigantic palace; which told me he still hadn't given up on getting what he wanted from me.

I walked lost through the golden corridors, which looked like they had been cut from a pure aurium asteroid that had fallen into this world many millennia ago, until a sweet smell hit my nostrils and I knew where to go. I walked to the carved arches of an opening to a terrace and gazed out at the landscape ahead, so spectacular it took my breath away. The palace was on top of a hillside, facing the entire untouched immensity of its world. Hills covered with bluish trees stretched like frozen waves on the horizon, hazed by the mist that, in white rivers, washed the morning. The world was unpardonably infinite; and its vastness intrigued me. It was as if, however much centuries I spent trying to know every point in this galaxy to draw on a map, there would always be lands that would remain unknown beyond the limited edges of the paper. And, even if I knew them all, no photograph, painting or memory would ever be able to eternalize its splendor, because the horizon was the only one that managed to perpetuate it in itself.

How could a universe with such beauty be so cruel?

"Rested once more?" The metriona greeted me, sitting on the terrace and sipping a kind of tea whose smell had attracted me.

He pointed to a chair beside him and I sat in it, receiving a cup into which he poured some of the tea. I smelled the pink citrus drink, its aroma so delicious that, for a moment, I considered drinking it... But even though the metrionas had rescued us, I didn't trust them enough.

"Do you have a name?"

"Knowing a name only makes sense if you plan to use it again..." The metriona observed. "Are you asking mine because you plan to help us?"

"For humans, names are how we know each other... And how we trust each other, having a part of another in our mouths to use as we please. If you want my trust, maybe we can start with a name."

The metriona considered me in silence.

"Metrionas doesn't have them." He revealed. "If given by others, names are loaded with expectations. And, even if given by themselves, they are too minimal to contain everything an individual is." The metriona explained. "So we refer to each other by our functions and what we represent, even though we can be replaced in the roles we play."

Maybe the leader of the pacifists could... But I doubted that I, the human who was trying to get to the core, could be too.

"I would like to thank you for the hosting and for the answers... But I cannot stay to help the rebellion." The metriona watched me cautiously, while I avoided looking him in the eyes. "I need to heal the Empire, whether that's the Aulics' wish or not... I have to do this for my mother."