"Would you ever want to get married?"
The question caught Simon off guard as he scribbled in his notebook. It had been a couple of days since they arrived in this strange world, away from everything they had ever known. For a while, they had thought they were back on Vita, but after some investigating, none of the flora belonged to either Vita or Earth. They had arrived in this strange place after attempting to experiment with Gateway magic for the first time in a few years since they had finally escaped Vita. Jack was nowhere to be seen when the blinding light had died down. Whether he was still back on Earth or completely elsewhere, they had no clue. All they knew was that they needed to figure out where they were and try to find their way back home.
It wasn't too terrible, though. They were fairly used to being forced into unknown environments and adapting. Although it wasn't preferred, it was something they could do. They spent the first day immediately investigating where they were and trying to set up camp. The fact was that they weren't home, so they would either have to come up with some way of getting back or wait for someone to come get them. There was hope that Jack was back home, that he wasn't misplaced and could come to get them.
So, the couple spent the night charting the stars—or rather, Wren spent the night charting the stars, trying to figure out where they were. Simon was more fixated on the world itself, seeing if there were any clues as to where they were. Wren was unable to recognize the stars, signifying that they were in an unknown system, which meant there really wasn't any reason to continue figuring out where they were. From then on, they spent the night awake, just talking with each other the same way they used to when they were younger.
They knew everything there was to know about each other; they never spent a day apart. Somehow, Wren never grew tired of Simon, which he found interesting. He knew he wasn't exactly the best when it came to trying to figure out how people felt, but he did notice one thing: most people either merely tolerated him or outright disliked him. This never bothered him; after all, most people didn't matter to him anyway. But with Wren, it seemed that she actually liked being around him—a somewhat pleasant surprise, more than anything. Even when she was briefly dating that Noddian boy, Vulcan, she often spent a lot of time near Simon. They were each other's safety, although he never believed that he really needed it; she was always around.
As for Wren, he could never truly pinpoint why, but he wanted her to be safe. He loved to see her smile, to see her shine. She always seemed to be able to pull something out of him, something he was never able to really recognize, even with a foreign feeling that he believed to be jealousy when Vulcan came into the picture. He thought that was strange, though—what did he have to be jealous of? Jack had teased him a lot back then about it, but Simon was simply confused as to what he was going on about. Now, being together with Wren for a couple of years, he somewhat understood what brought those feelings on, but those feelings still seemed illogical to him.
The feeling of surprise that he felt now also seemed illogical to him. Granted, he believed that her question was illogical as well.
"Of course." He put his pencil down slightly as he looked up at Wren in the glow of the fire. "People don't court unless they have plans for marriage."
"I know," Wren continued, staring up at the stars with her own journal in hand, no doubt charting the specks in the sky.
"Then why ask?"
"Things change, Simon," she began, examining the pen in her hand. "We know this better than anyone."
"We haven't."
"You must not have been paying attention, then," Wren leaned back onto the ground, putting her things aside while refocusing on the sky. "So much has happened. We're not who we used to be all those years ago."
"Well, yes, people can't help but change and adapt; it's part of human nature," he stated blankly. "But fundamentally, we have not changed. You are still you, in love with the stars and a spirit on fire, and I'm still me, continuing on as usual. Things change, we have changed, yes, but we are still familiar."
"But what if even who we are fundamentally changes? The stars, although they appear to stay in place, are also drifting, changing slowly and becoming something unrecognizable."
Simon placed his notebook aside, now fully focused on her. "Ever changing, but beautiful. You know that things change beneath a different light, but at a star's core, it's still made up of the same elements it was born with when it dies. Nothing truly changes. The stars haven't, and neither have we."
Wren continued staring up at the stars as Simon drew closer to her, allowing himself to rest on the ground next to her. "I suppose so. It's just," she hesitated for a moment, "nothing seems to stay for us; we never can have anything."
"We have each other," he reached for her hand, and she latched onto his.
"That is true."
"Then by that fact alone, nothing else matters."
Simon watched Wren as she turned to look at him, smiling gently. He loved to see that smile, and he knew that that was something that would never change.
