Right Back After This

Season 2, Episode 17

It's a familiar walk: the four of them, all in a line, grinning and waving, laughing with what was once nerves and supposed to be excitement- now, routine. The crowds are never any sort of distinct; they blur into a screaming mass of indiscernible animals, like a hive of insects swarming over the ground, swarming over him. Riz doesn't flinch.

There's Gravitos, zir hair flowing around zir as if in an invisible ocean, hues of purple and pink and green mixed in with the predominant blue. Zir eyes are a flat fuschia, nothing like Riz's soft hues, bright and vivid; if that weren't scary enough, the fact that zir sclera and pupils and irises were all that one colour, indistinct, made it impossible to tell if ze was looking at you. Much like the infinite universe, one had to assume zir gaze was entirely focused on you, scrutinising your every thought and action. There was no safe assumption otherwise.

The stage is covered in a similar soft, sinking carpet, although this one is the same dark blue as zir hair, tinting the infinite universe something less scary than its true darkness. Riz feels all the gravity around him and almost struggles to walk to his destination, the ornate couch that, despite him having never seen before, is precisely familiar.

He doesn't falter, though, because even if he feels every bit as unmoored as he did lying with Kiel, high on something he didn't understand, social convention is a strong guide he can follow with his eyes closed, walking blindly on a floor that pretends to not be there.

He sits down on the couch, letting his arm fall naturally around the back for Amello to sit beside him. It feels natural, and so he won't question it- and the look Amello gives him could mean anything. As the crowd slowly quiets down, Gravitos moves around zir desk, flowing fabric following zir in what must be called a dress, but its form is too difficult to tell from the invisible wind moving its folds. Ze sits, arms crossed, and Riz can see every atom vibrating at a pace that cannot be natural- not that anything on this entire cursed moon, planet, solar system is natural.

"Saccharine!" zir voice is somehow booming and piercing all at once. Stage lights flash across Riz's awareness. Something is missing from the moment, but it's at least partially pain, and so Riz sits, unbalanced, floating, in space, waiting for a meteor to strike him. "So good to see you all. How've you been?"

It's not a real question, and the 'good' falling from Riz's lips is not a real answer. It's given half a second of thought and the answer is not considered. "Welcome to the show. You've been here before, right?"

Again, Riz doesn't feel like he's answering. He opens his mouth, but they all speak in chorus, so quick that nobody will notice no noise comes from Riz's mouth.

Gravitos flips zir hair over zir shoulder. Ze glitters, and maybe it's just the lights, or zir dress, or zir skin, or everything. Riz doesn't like glitter. Glitter is a disguise that hides eyes in the dark. "You're the talk of the galaxy, don't you know? Lots of things happening for you. Wrenley and Jace, Riz and Amello, whatever the hell happened on Gahren Six with Atlantis, and of course, the elephant, but we'll get there. One thing at a time."

The elephant. Much like burning out, what that word once meant is lost to Riz. Now, it just means the hook for the viewers- the big thing in the back of their minds that they want an answer to. When someone mentions the elephant, you all know what they mean.

Riz wonders if Gravitos will be brave enough to say the name Ares. He briefly considers what it would look like to burn it all down and say it himself. But as always, Majadha is the only thing that will burn, and Riz isn't the only one losing.

So he grips the couch and wills himself to hold on. If he can get through this...

There's no relief. But he has to get through this.