Radiance: Part One

L7: Memento Mori

Lyda sprawled out on her small sofa, and Vyrik lay in the middle of the floor, both staring up at the domed ceiling that displayed the entirety of the cosmos on interconnected, edgeless screens. It had been two and a half hours since they'd moved into the small but cozy living space just off of the kitchenette and they had spent the better part of it discussing their early lives, past the extent of heartbreak and into childhood. They had been taking turns introducing each other to different types of alcohol and equivalent from their respective planets and were both on their way to complete intoxication, the likes of which neither had experienced in a handful of years.

"If you don't mind my asking, were you at all jealous of the others, with their parents? I only know what it felt like not to have my mother, my memories of her are quite distant these days." Vyrik had a throw pillow under his head and had unfastened his long silver hair so that it fanned out behind him. With the subtle lighting in the room and the glow of the cosmos overhead, he looked ethereal. The light caught his lashes and danced across his face- she'd have felt intoxicated even without alcohol. She certainly didn't need some atmospheric phenomenon to tell her that he was nauseatingly attractive.

"Nope." she sighed, "I felt bad for all of them. I knew they couldn't come with us. They even tried to bully me about it, at one point- A couple of mean, older girls had had me cornered in the hall. I politely informed them that it didn't matter to me because they'd all be dead together when we got out here, anyway. Just as dead as mine. They cried, but no one got into trouble and they left me alone after that. No one likes being faced with their own mortality or those of the people they care about. I practically grew up with ''memento mori' glowing in neon above my head."

Vyrik turned his head to match her gaze. "Memento Mori?" He arched his brow. Of course he wouldn't know Latin, she laughed to herself.

"It's an old Earth saying in a dead language. It means Remember Death- remember that we all die. Everything dies. Nothing is eternal. That's what you get for being the kid with the dead parents." She shrugged nonchalantly, lazily holding her fourth drink in a hand off the edge of the sofa. "But what about your people- Ascension? What even is that, if not death?"

Vyrik nodded. "Well, when we managed to elongate our life span we knew we would have to make some sort of compromise. So, that compromise came in that if you have children, you must volunteer to ascend after that child is of age. My father, being such a big figurehead, of course, has been given more time, as my particular role, and my sister's, are a bit more than that of a commoner. Not that I would imply anyone is any more or less worthy of anything, it's just that the training for this takes longer, especially since he has done everything as a singular parent, the council allotted him more time after my mother's murder. I'm not a practitioner of Ascension, so I'm not completely familiar with the process, but I know that a lot must be done to our bodies in order for them to begin to break down. The life-elongation crystallizes parts of us so that we do not age or degenerate over time."

"So it's a medical procedure that makes you die, for population control? That sounds pretty seedy. What if someone gets pregnant by accident? They have to forfeit their life?" Lyda frowned.

"Birth control is mandatory. Only those who want to have children, with medical supervision, are off of it. There are lots of documents and legal jargon to go through in order to even be eligible for birthing certification. And others may volunteer to Ascend in the place of the parent, if they so choose- in fact, many elders who have Ascended, have done so in order to keep the cycle and to keep balance, not necessarily because they had children. There is a lot more to it than what I know. That may sound ignorant, but I have used my mind for expertise in other areas and my life has only just begun." he shrugged, downing what was left of his drink. She had chosen something a bit lighter for this drink, after his having chosen a lighter 'euphoric'. It had a name she wasn't comfortable trying to pronounce, but now they were drinking a malt liquor beverage that had been popular amongst her friends when they were just of age to imbibe. They'd pass around a single bottle in an alley just outside of their dormitory as if it were illegal and wondered why they never got drunk.