The Celestial Way

Chapter 23.2 - The Way Abides

Later, Airo and Veralla were alone in their room. She lay on the bed, quiet and downcast. He sat on the bed's edge, pretending to read his grid-caster, the screen scrolling before his unseeing eyes. The lights were dimmed, giving focus to the night sky outside the long window, and serene music drifted from the room's surround system. At some point, Veralla put a foreclaw on Airo's thigh and he lifted his gaze.

"How long do we have until we die?" she asked in a small voice.

He met her vivid, purple eyes. He wanted to tell her that not all was lost, that they would find a way to make everything right. Yet he never had been a person to rely on false hopes and she, while still juvenile, was a creature much wiser and more mature than her age would indicate. Platitude had no place in their communion.

"Cloud estimates it will take between fifteen to twenty days before the Reality Vortex reaches critical stage," he said with a sigh. "The end will come without warning. In one moment we will be alive, and in the next – everything will become pure entropy."

"Is there really no way to stop this?" she insisted, her expression earnest and desperate in equal measure. "Should we not try to escape anyway, even without translight travel?"

He shook his head. "The Vortex will collapse all of the local astral region. We can probably clear the danger zone before this happens, yet once the stars within the system fall into the entropy field, all three will go supernova. The ensuing cosmic explosion will vaporize us on the spot and will reach both Consortium and Union space, where the resulting gamma-ray bursts will destroy whole colonies, or at the very least damage them severely. There is even a small chance that the explosive front will reach Utopia Draconis, and destabilize the Shard located there severely enough so the whole process would repeat, which would destroy most of the populated galaxy."

"Oh," she said, her slit-pupiled eyes widening. Her twin crests flared, and her wings unfurled partway as she absorbed this fatalistic scenario. "That is so... sad. So many more people will die."

"Yes," Airo said, lowering his head. "And they do not even know how little time they have left."

They fell silent again. Veralla shifted forward and coiled around Airo, wrapping both of them with her wings. He leaned into her embrace, laying a hand atop her foreclaw. He felt the familiar tingle in his mind which he had come to associate with some kind of emotional or spiritual connection between them.

"What should we do, when we know we will die soon?" she hrrr–ed quietly.

"We can try to be together as much as possible," he said, reflective. "To be among friends and kin, sharing what joy and love remains in us."

She snuggled tighter around him. "I would like that very much."

"Me too, Veralla."

The serene melody once more filled the room for a nanoscale eternity. Smooth, calm, it transitioned into a brighter tonality, inviting the mind to soar toward higher perspectives, notes strung together like tiny aural stars in a panorama of soothing, cosmic cadence.

"Do you still hate Ferrtau?" Veralla asked.

Airo sighed, a deep, heartfelt sound, and with it he finally released the last burden weighing on his soul. "No, I do not hate him anymore," he said.

Her slit-pupiled eyes became very wide and very round. "So you do not want to kill him anymore?"

"No, I no longer want to kill Ferrtau."

She rawr–ed, a happy little sound, and embraced him even closer. "Thank you, Airo."

Her draconic grip was already shy of crushing, yet he let her cling to him, keeping his body as relaxed as possible. Smothered thus by her scaled, dark bulk, he let the words he had spoken ring within him.

He no longer wanted revenge. His hate and his enmities were gone. His ill-will toward Ferrtau or anyone else had faded, transformed into something lighter, something better. He had seen the path where anger led to and what fury, true fury, was capable of when given power. He had seen millions killed by the fires of rage, without mercy or delimitation. And that boundless rage, that overwhelming fury, that primal anger, it all had come from one source: grief. Looking back to their personal fight, Airo realized Ferrtau's true motives. It had not been insane visions which had driven him to his mad crusade; it had been loss, giving rise to pain and suffering, both of which must have been as deep and all-encompassing as Airo's own sorrow had once been.

Ferrtau was no monster. He was a sad, broken man who sought peace, yet couldn't let go of the pain. Airo truly understood his former friend, and at the same time Ferrtau had shown him a perfect mirror to what his own tormented nature had looked like when seen from the outside.

"What are you thinking about?" Veralla asked, pulling Airo from his reverie.

"The past," he replied. "I am saying my farewells to it."

"Oh," she said, all childish wonder as usual. "Will the past not be sad if you do so with it?"

"No, it will not," he replied, and smiled, feeling more free than ever. "In fact, it will become much happier. It has waited for a long time for me to release it."

"Oh." Veralla uncoiled somewhat, so she could look at him, her snout inches away from his face. "I did not know that temporality from the spacetime continuum was able to possess or express emotions."

"I did not know either," he laughed, meeting her amethyst gaze. There was so much warmth there. So much limitless light, enough to save trillions like him. Even so close to doom, he was forever grateful to the Great Cosmos for giving him the companionship of such a loving soul. "So, what do you want to do in the days we have left?"

"Is it right if we still play computer games?" she asked.

"Of course."

"Can we play some now?"

"Let us do that tomorrow," he said. "It is best now if we go to sleep."

"Aw, but I do not want to sleep!" she hrrr–ed plaintively. "We have only days left to live! I want to experience them as much as I can!"

"I am tired, Veralla. I need some rest."

"But can you not... resist sleep somehow? I want to be with you!"

"I want that too. Yet remember, I nearly died because Ferrtau tried to reave my soul – it is not as if I merely have sore muscles or a hangover. Some conditions are restored only through sleep."

She made a small sound, lowering her head and wings. "I understand."

"Do not be sad," Airo said. "I promise you we will not sleep tomorrow. Then we will have some extra time to be together or among others."

"You promise?"

"I promise."

She hrrr–ed, and nuzzled him. "Okay. Good night, Airo."

"Good night, Veralla," he said, and commanded the room throughhis gridcaster to stop the ambient music and turn off the lights.