Dreamstorm

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  Vasiht’h mmmed. “Frosted chocolate chip cookies.”

  “How can you go wrong?” Sehvi limned a shape in the air with her hands, a circle the size of a serving platter. “Better make a big one. So you’ll have room for all the frosting.”

  “A frosted cookie cake sounds deadly,” Vasiht’h said. “Works for me. How are you, ariishir?”

  “I’m good,” she said. “Still grumpy about this thing with our brothers making our aunt unmanageable, but otherwise all right.”

  “Wait, Pes and Dondi still haven’t figured things out?” Vasiht’h asked, incredulous.

  “Still? It’s only been a few days, ariihir.”

  A few days… had it really? He stared into the bowl at the sugar and the butter he’d just dumped into it. Grabbing the spatula, he started mashing. “I’ll call them and give them an earful. A proper earful this time. I can’t believe they’re making a mess over something so stupid.”

  “Maybe it’s not stupid to them?” Sehvi said. “Um… Vasiht’h? What’s wrong? And… come to think of it, why are you home? Weren’t you supposed to be on vacation for a few more days?”

  “We came back early.”

  “Early?” Sehvi said. “What went wrong? Don’t tell me Prince Perfect actually failed?”

  Vasiht’h dropped the spatula, stunned. He hadn’t even asked. “I don’t know.”

  “Wait, what? How can you not know? Isn’t that the reason you went?”

  Vasiht’h returned to creaming the butter into the sugar. Vigorously. “Maybe you should search for recent news from Tsera Nova.”

  Sehvi eyed him skeptically, then looked down, presumably at a data tablet. He started counting, hit sixteen when she exclaimed, “Oh my Goddess! Don’t you tell me you were there for this!”

  “Broke a wing and everything,” Vasiht’h said, subdued. Hearing the sublimated panic in her voice made the whole thing feel real, in a way Jahir’s relief hadn’t. Jahir had been there, participating. Someone who’d been elsewhere during the whole affair, reacting to it…

  “Oh my Goddess. Vasiht’h. You’re seriously all right??”

  “I’m fine.” Vasiht’h exhaled. “A little unnerved by the whole thing, but I’m all right.”

  Sehvi said, “Yeah, I believe that.” She leaned forward, so wide-eyed the whites were visible all the way around the irises. “Talk to me.”

  “I think that was the worst day in my life? Days?” Vasiht’h cracked the eggs, watching the yolks drop. His heart was pounding hard again. “I thought I was dead.” He twitched a little, resumed mixing. “But I didn’t die.”

  “Fourteen people did!”

  Had they? He paled under his fur. People didn’t die on resort planets. Even resort planets having emergencies. That’s what Alliance technology was for. To save people. Who had it been? That Asanii whose hand he’d held? Someone from the Friendly Mermaid? Terry the trainer, whose quasi-sea lion had saved his life? “Well, I didn’t. And Jahir’s fine too. He was out of the way for most of it.” Or Vasiht’h thought he had been. When had Jahir come down to the planet? Why hadn’t he asked? “And the first few days were wonderful. Just… you don’t remember the wonderful beginning when the ending ends like… well. Like that.”

  “I bet.” She studied him, still shaken. “Ariihir, are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I’ll be fine in a few days. I just need to remember I’m not there anymore.” Vasiht’h smiled at her weakly. “So, to help with that, why don’t you tell me about your day? And I’ll make cookies, and then I’ll eat them and remember that this is my life.”

  “All right,” she said gamely. “Let me start with your nephews.”

  “In trouble again?”

  “Depends on your definition of trouble…”

  Vasiht’h smiled. “Go on. I want to hear what I’m in for when I finally decide to have mine.” He started adding the flour while listening to Sehvi, and wondered if he really was all right or if this was just another form of avoidance. Maybe Tiber would know.

  Allen’s first reaction wasn’t encouraging, which was to clasp Vasiht’h’s upper arms and have a good look at him. “You’re in one piece, physically at least.”

  “Don’t tell me you know?”

  The human shook his head. “The last time I talked to you, you were heading to Tsera Nova for a vacation while Jahir sat his licensing exam. You come back half a week early and want an emergency appointment? I did some homework. Come in, sit. How bad was it?”

  Vasiht’h bent to shake hands with Sarah the dog, remembering when she’d been a shy rescue more interested in hiding than greeting visitors. Five years had transformed her into a quietly confident helpmeet. “It was bad. I got thrown off a boat into the middle of it and almost drowned before they pulled me onto a rescue raft.”

  “Rhack,” Allen said, staring at him. And then, “Pardon me, that was unprofessional. Make yourself comfortable. Would you like kerinne?”

  “Yes, please?”

  The passing years hadn’t seen much change in Allen’s office. Vasiht’h took the rake up and tried to rearrange the rocks in the little plot in the center of the coffee table, but it was hard to concentrate. He accepted the mug gratefully and sipped from it. This was the taste of his normal life. Not fruity purple drinks with umbrellas, but kerinne, and hot chocolate, and sometimes coffee or tea.

  Allen sat on the couch across from him. “I assume Jahir’s all right.”

  “Yes. We’re both here.” Vasiht’h exhaled. “So why do I still feel so twitchy? We’re back, we’re safe. It’s over.”

  “The physical danger’s over,” Allen said. “Obviously the existential danger is lingering. What were you working on before you left?”

  What had he been working on? He thought of the trip to Seersana. Seeing Palland, and the girls. His reaction to his brothers fighting. His interactions with Kristyl and Gladiolus. His feelings about the sight of Jahir in a hospital setting again, his hair braided back to reveal the severe jawline that usually hid beneath the softer fall.

  “My major professor back at Seersana U said it was important that we know what our lives would look like if we were alone,” he said. “To be able to imagine what we’d do with ourselves, and what we’d want just for ourselves.”

  “Good advice,” Allen said tentatively. “Did it make you uncomfortable?”

  Vasiht’h eyed him.

  Smiling wryly, Allen said, “Let me do the therapist things without you noticing them, will you?”

  “Of course it made me uncomfortable,” Vasiht’h said. “I’m bonded to Jahir mentally. He’s part of my life. I’m not planning for him ever to not be part of my life.” He stared at the rock garden. “And I’m not sure ‘think of your life ending’ was how Professor Palland meant me to conceive of what life by myself would be like.”

  “I imagine if you wrote him to tell him ‘we’re all alone when we die’, he would have words with you,” Allen said dryly.

  “He’d explode.” Vasiht’h imagined it, chuckled. “He doesn’t do written communication well… that might get me a realtime call. I don’t think I’d blame him, either. It’s morbid.”

  “It happened to you, though.”

  “Almost happened,” Vasiht’h corrected, petting the dog, whose tail thumped against the carpet. “Obviously I didn’t die.”

  Allen tilted a hand back and forth. “I meant the events that made you think of it happened to you.”

  “Yes,” Vasiht’h said. “And they’ll never not have happened to me.” He thought of Nieve’s Girls. “This is… a pivotal moment, isn’t it. Something that makes you re-evaluate your life and decide things about it.”

  “It certainly would qualify, yes.”

  “Then… why don’t I want to change anything?” Vasiht’h asked. “And why do I feel like I haven’t changed?”

  “I don’t know, arii,” Allen said, gently. “Because it sounds a lot like you have.”

  Vasiht’h rubbed his eyes. “I didn’t eve
n ask Jahir about his test. And I made friends on Tsera Nova. I didn’t stop to ask if they were all right. I haven’t sent them any messages. I haven’t done anything normal.”

  “And you know that’s reasonable, given what you went through.”

  “I do, but I don’t believe it.” Vasiht’h took up the rake but couldn’t make himself prod at the rocks. “My sister says I have problems owning my happiness. Having problems owning my right to be miserable is new. Do you think Jahir’s rubbing off on me?”

  The human made a face. “Anything I say in response to that is going to sound…”

  “Prejudicial?” Vasiht’h asked, smiling a little.

  “Ridiculous,” Allen said. “Because it’s not a productive line of thought. We’re not here to talk about Jahir, arii. And your Palland is right, in that you’re not just the you who’s in a relationship with an Eldritch. You’re also the you who existed before him, and the you who exists when he’s not around. The you who does have dreams and needs separate from his.”

  Vasiht’h lowered his head until his brow hit the edge of the table. And gently knocked his head against it several times. “What is wrong with me? Why am I so confused? Why can’t I just be relieved to be home?”

  “Because home was already complicated by the things you were working on,” Allen said. “And the fact that your near-death experience hasn’t clarified anything is upsetting.”

  “Is that what’s wrong?” Vasiht’h asked, startled.

  “That’s what it sounds like to me,” Allen said. “Pet the dog.”

  Vasiht’h stroked Sarah’s fur obediently, fighting the nonsensical urge to start crying. And then he was crying. “Oh, Allen. I’m alive and fourteen people died.”

  It wasn’t at all professional for the human to hug him, but he did, and it was exactly what Vasiht’h needed. If anyone had asked him if the man most skeptical of their methodology would become a friend of this caliber, the kind of friend he could hide his face against while he wept without even knowing why, he would have scoffed. But the fact that he had, and that strange and wondrous things still happened, helped him get himself back under control. He accepted the tissues Allen passed him and wiped his face and nose. “And I know, I know we don’t get to choose when we go, and we don’t get to know why we do when we do. But it feels so senseless. And I feel so lucky. How can I be so lucky, and waste so much of my good fortune flailing like this? I’m not a kit out of college anymore. I should… I should know what I want and be content with what I’m doing. Or know that I’m not content with what I’m doing, and be making plans to change it.”

  “That’s holding yourself to a higher standard than you’d hold any of your own clients to,” Allen pointed out gently. “We’re all allowed to be works in progress, arii.”

  “I know that too, it just feels like I’m wasting time. Our time. And I know we have time, but at the same time, we don’t. I almost died…” Vasiht’h shuddered. “Why am I even alive?”

  “Do you need an answer to that beyond ‘Aksivaht’h wanted you here?’”

  “Yes!” Vasiht’h managed a watery laugh. “Except I know it’s my job to make meaning in my own life. That’s why I’m so upset with myself. There are a handful of teenage girls on Seersana who are way ahead of me and they’re barely old enough to date. How can they have figured it out so soon, when I’m still not sure? Even after a hurricane?”

  Allen frowned, leaning back and folding his arms. Seeing it, Vasiht’h said, “Oh, that doesn’t look good. Why are you disengaging?”

  The human chuckled. “Just because you know what it means doesn’t mean you know what inspired it.”

  “I know, so tell me?”

  “Your major professor’s advice,” Allen said slowly. “I think I know why you need to do the exercise.”

  “Because…? I need to know what my life would be like if I was alone?” Vasiht’h asked, cautious.

  “No. Because I think if you were alone, you’d find your life meaningful enough.” Allen reached for his own cup. “I think it’s other people’s expectations of your life that are causing the problem. Because you care about them, and want to live up to what you feel they want for you, even though it’s not actually what you want.”

  Vasiht’h stared at him.

  “That’s either a ‘you got it in one’ look or a ‘you’re so off base I can’t even understand what you just said’ look.” Allen sipped. “Which is it?”

  “I…” Vasiht’h stopped. Would he be happy with his life if he wasn’t worried about… whose expectations? His parents’? His family’s? Jahir’s? Everyone he thought might be judging him? Was that even fair? Because he was obviously ignoring the people who thought he was doing great, who even admired him for having his life so together. Even Sehvi kept reminding him the reason he wasn’t grappling with her challenges was that he’d already surmounted them.

  “I… might have to get back to you on that one,” Vasiht’h said weakly.

  “So, ‘you got it in one.’”

  “I’m afraid so.” Vasiht’h scratched under the dog’s chin, much to her delight. “Or at least, it’s so close that I’m going to have to work with it for a while. It’s clashing with something else in my head.”

  “That being?”

  “That sometimes we need other people because they’re the ones who know us when we don’t know ourselves.” Vasiht’h looked over at him. “What if these other people know something about me I don’t know? Something I’m missing?”

  “That’s possible,” Allen said. “I wouldn’t be in this profession—with you, I’ll point out—if I didn’t think that external perspectives can help us recalibrate. Sometimes, we really do need other people’s help. But I submit to you, arii, that if these other people’s conceptions of what you actually want from your life were true, you wouldn’t be chafing so hard. You’d accept them and be angsting about how to bring about those changes. Instead, you’re upset because you know what you want. You just don’t think other people value it.”

  “Oh,” Vasiht’h said softly. The dog beside him perked her ears, stared up at him with her gentle, patient eyes. “It’s so true, isn’t it. The work we do isn’t valued.”

  “It’s misunderstood,” Allen said. “And it’s intangible. It’s easier to grasp the value of concrete things. You can’t walk on therapy like you can a bridge.”

  “But you can use therapy to move forward,” Vasiht’h said. “And sometimes bridges fail.” He straightened his shoulders. “This has been really helpful.”

  “Good,” Allen said. “Because I hate seeing you question something this fundamental about yourself. You’re a good therapist, Vasiht’h. You bring a great deal of good into the world. That matters.”

  Vasiht’h stared at him, agape.

  The human chuckled. “And yes, I said that out loud. I hope, after how we started our relationship, that the words carry some weight.”

  “You have no idea,” Vasiht’h answered, still stunned.

  “I won’t even charge extra for it,” Allen said, amused.

  Sarah walked Vasiht’h out of Tiber’s office, leaving him among the people outside the glass doors. He forced his paws to start moving, and soon he was trotting down the street toward the Commons, and his thoughts… they weren’t busy. For once, he felt emptied out. As if Allen’s words had been a bomb, and left nothing in their wake but a crater and the wind. It felt… good, though. Like he could finally breathe. So he did, sliding into the lunch crowd as they headed toward the restaurants and shops in the city center. Overhead the sky was a bright and perfect blue, with the starbase’s spindle limned in white against the arch. As he looked up at it, he thought that here was a place that would never know a storm. But weather wasn’t climate. He remembered that perfect moment on Seersana, when his worries had fallen away and let him see himself as something greater than his constant anxieties. His emotional weather had cleared, and he could see.

  “Storms pass,” he murmured, and exhaled. A
nd smiled at his reflection in a bakery window before pausing, and frowning. Except he still didn’t know how his partner had fared, and what he was doing with his license. And his brothers were still fighting. Vasiht’h stared inside the bakery, watching the Tam-illee behind the counter hand a cookie down to a kit with bright blue bows tied into her hair while her fond father looked on. His eyes drifted from the child to the cookie, and then the attendant.

  The memory of Jahir’s voice, of the sight of him looking after the girls as they waved. Would you not help them if you could?

  His own voice, answering. No, if I had money, I’d use it for just that sort of thing.

  Sehvi’s voice. Maybe he wants to do this thing, maybe he doesn’t. But you don’t get to decide what he does with his life.

  Palland, accompanied by the scent of strong black tea: No matter how useful it is to compare our perceptions to an external perspective, we still have to commit to trying to sort it out on our own.

  And Allen, finally. Sometimes, we really do need other people’s help.

  Vasiht’h went into the bakery, bought himself a muffin—blueberry topped with cinnamon and crystallized sugar—and sat in the bright, windowed area set aside for patrons while he checked the balance in his account. He knew how much he’d find. Vasiht’h not only did their budgeting, he set aside money for savings and economized when he felt they were overspending. Which was almost never, because as he’d once told Jahir, he had few material wants, other than soft pillows and food. Jahir… well. The Eldritch was almost monklike in his tastes. Most of his extravagances, when he indulged in them, involved experiences: concerts, art exhibits, tours. And wasn’t that another sign that they were where they should be? Neither of them spent like people desperate to escape their lives.

  As he expected, their trip to Tsera Nova hadn’t changed the numbers. He’d told Sehvi he would be upset about that when he got back, but he found himself glad instead that there was no evidence that they’d gone. How long would that be a sore spot? He guessed he would be processing for a long time. Years, maybe, given how often he still thought of the events in Heliocentrus.