Soul Ties

Chapter 8: Goodbye

"We'll have to meet together on Xoven. I think it's the only place we'll be able to stay unnoticed until we can find each other," I explain to Seren as we walk closely back to the shore. We needed to flesh out this plan with as much detail as possible before we could even hope to go through with it.

"Xoven's the most populated planet, right?"

"So I've been told. Maybe we'll get lucky and be mated to a Sidin so we can straight to Xoven without it being suspicious. If not, we'll have to convince whoever we end up with that we want to spend our lifetime there." I drop my voice a little lower just in case. "Once there, we settle, end them, and search for each other."

Seren looks up at me. "How will we do that? We know nothing about Xoven except the small stories we've been told."

As I gazed across the still water in the distance, the shore now almost closing in, I ponder that very thing. With the sun reflecting off the calmness of the waters surface, something joins my thoughts. A little memory.

"Did you know every planet has a different amount of hours in a day? Apparently ours is one of the shortest," I repeat what Barlow said to me earlier to Seren.

"What? That can't be real."

"Thirteen hours. That's how long our days last. On Xoven, they last about thirty-seven." Seren gasps in disbelief. The same feeling I still have saying it out loud now. "Can you imagine days longer than ours?"

"What in the galaxy would we do with all that time?" she questions.

Reaching out for her hand, I face her and let my lips touch the base of her jaw.

"Love each other."

Pulling her into my chest, I let myself cry again. Even though I was certain we would go through with our plan, this still felt like goodbye. There was no guarantee that everything would work out the way we wanted it to. There were still so many ways things could go wrong. Between us not being able to kill them, to being found out, to not even being able to find each other once we did reach Xoven.

I couldn't be blind to the facts. Seren and I might never make it back to each other, but I wouldn't give up trying. I would gladly send myself on a one way ship to Plut for our love, with or without Seren.

I look over her shoulder at the ocean again. "We'll meet in the water."

"Okay," she agrees, pulling back to look at my face. "The water it is. Maybe we could swim and hide in one of those underwater houses we've been told about."

"Once we end our mates, I want you to wait until the sun sets. Stay in one of those houses until night falls, and I'll come find you. You can't move or else we'll be swimming around looking for each other and exposing ourselves to whoever, or whatever, else could potentially be in the water."

"I'll wait for you, I promise," Seren whispers lovingly. Giving her one last squeeze, we make our way into the water, feeling the unspoken wave of goodbye as we let go of each other.

-

It was almost impossible falling asleep that night. I tossed and turned for what felt like hours, trying to keep my thoughts in one place, and failing miserably. I assumed the emotional exhaustion I felt would've worn me out by the time I got home, but was mistaken as I lay here, the most uncomfortable I had ever been.

Eventually, I decided to give up. Sleep was never going to come, especially with my departure only a week away. Getting up, I swim towards the small window in my room. The moonlight illuminated the water just enough for me to watch the fish lazily swim by. Maybe the still water would relax me if I just let my mind drift off.