“I’ll rest when I’m dead,” Sionna joked, stretching back in her chair and yawning again, “and by then, we’ll have figured this thing out, so you can just bring me back to life and we can get right back to work.”
Yamako laughed lightly at this. She moved away from Sionna’s workspace and stood behind the doctor’s chair. She lifted her fingers to touch Sionna’s red hair, which was pulled back tightly into its usual, professional bun. “Doesn’t this give you a headache after a while?” Yamako asked, removing the pins from the bun.
Sionna closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of the woman’s fingers against her scalp as she released her hair from the tight knot. “I’m kind of used to it by now,” Sionna answered. “I keep my hair a bit shorter when I’m working long hours so that the bun isn’t too heavy.”
“You should just let your hair down,” Yamako told her, combing gently through the red strands. “Why do you have to keep everything so carefully structured? Can you imagine Visola with her hair in a formal arrangement like this?”
Sionna smiled. “I think it would be sacrilegious to her personality.”
“So do you feel the need to personify the other end of the spectrum, to be the order to her chaos? Do you try to be this controlled so that you balance out her wildness?”
“Yeah,” Sionna said softly. “She’s unruly and rowdy enough for the both of us.”
“No, she’s not,” Yamako said, kneading the tension out of the top of Sionna’s spine. “You aren’t the same person just because you’re identical. You’re not two halves of a whole; you need to have some sort of balance in your life too.”
“Oh?” Sionna asked, startled by the sensation of breath on the back of her ear. She tried to remember what she had been doing a few minutes ago, but everything before her seemed suddenly unimportant and wearisome. A bit of excitement was stirring in her chest, and she could not remember the last time she felt excited.
“It’s been a while,” Yamako whispered, pressing her lips against Sionna’s shoulder.
Sionna smiled. “Something like four hundred years. But we were just little girls back then, fooling around.”
“I was never fooling around about you, Sio.”
“Are you trying to seduce me, Yama?”
“You only just figured that out?” Yamako said, spinning the woman’s chair around and giving her an amused look. “I thought you were a genius.”
Sionna laughed. “You didn’t have to dress up. I thought the yellow PJs with the giant bunnies were pretty sexy.”
“I think you working so hard is really sexy. It’s driving me crazy being in the same room with you all day and watching you be so focused and driven. But you’re too focused.” Yamako leaned forward to place a kiss on Sionna’s nose. “Maybe if you allow yourself to get distracted for a few minutes, you can get a fresh perspective on the problem. Maybe I can inspire you.”
Sionna closed her eyes, enjoying the feel of Yamako’s soft skin against her cheek. “What about Kaito’s dad?”
Yamako laughed. “He’s married to someone else.”
“What!” Sionna barked. “You’re so bad. It’s not Vachlan, is it?”
“Do I look suicidal to you?” Yamako asked. “Of course not. It’s my fun little secret—I prefer it this way. I have my darling little boy, my freedom, and my career. No one bosses me around.”
“Sounds like a good strategy,” Sionna mused, tracing the lace at the hem of Yamako’s negligee. “Maybe I should find a married guy.”
“You should find someone,” Yamako said. “You’re the smartest person I know. Why do you punish yourself with loneliness?”
“Because it’s smart to be alone,” Sionna answered.
“But you’re getting older,” Yamako said, as she unbuttoned Sionna’s lab coat and slid it off her shoulders. “You shouldn’t waste your years away working yourself to the bone. All business and no pleasure makes Sio a dull girl.”
“I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with men,” Sionna responded.
“Oh, I know. Luckily, I’m not a man.”
Sionna’s excitement had mushroomed past the point of restraint, and she pushed herself up from her chair. Standing up, she was far taller than Yamako, and had to lean down to kiss the Japanese woman. Even this was strange and thrilling, for she was used to kissing taller individuals. Yamako tugged the lab coat off Sionna’s arms, and pushed the doctor up against her desk.
Sionna’s microscope went crashing to the floor, neglected and ignored.
“You’re sending me away?” Elandria asked, pulling her sweater around herself more closely.
“No,” Trevain said, shaking his head firmly. “I’m just telling you what she said. If you choose, and if you want, she will train you to become a Sister of Sedna. She will teach you to use your voice as a weapon.”
Elandria took a step backward. “So you’re sending me to a nunnery?”
“No,” Trevain said, hanging his head forward. “Stop getting angry at me! I have been trying everything here. I tried asking Sionna for help with her medical expertise, but she’s hit a dead end. Princess Yamako says that nanotechnology is in its infancy, but it might be capable of helping in a few hundred years. Varia doesn’t have a few hundred years to wait for her mother to come back to life—so I went to the priestess.”
“Science, technology, and spirituality,” Elandria repeated, “and nothing works.”
“Don’t forget magic fish,” Trevain said miserably.
“I really wish that it had been me,” Elandria said softly. “You would have been much less stressed out about trying to move mountains to get me back.”
“I really hate it when you say things like that,” Trevain told her with frustration.
“Sorry. Insulting myself is some kind of defensive reflex,” Elandria responded with a shameful blush. “Okay. So this priestess says that she can revive my sister, and she merely requests me in return? To be her student?”
“Yes,” Trevain said miserably, “but it’s more than that. She wants to take you away from me.”
“What do you mean by that?” Elandria asked.
“The Sisters of Sedna aren’t allowed to be with men.”
Elandria laughed. “Oh, my. Chastity! What a fitting way to atone for my transgressions.”
“You haven’t done anything wrong,” Trevain told her. “You don’t need to atone for anything, and I don’t want you to make this choice in order to punish yourself. I also don’t want you to make this choice in order to punish me. The only reason we should do this is for Aazuria.”
“Is it… guaranteed?” Elandria asked awkwardly.
“No.”
Elandria hesitated, beginning to pace back and forth in vexation. “So if Aazuria does not return to life, who will warm your bed? Will you collect whores, or marry a new wife?”
“Don’t insult me like that, Elan,” he said wearily. “I don’t want to let go of you. None of this is easy, and you don’t need to make this harder on me by being cruel. Life has been such a rollercoaster these past few months.”
“I suppose we cannot have our cake and eat it too,” she said. “Please forgive me. We both want to stay together and remain as we are, but we also want Varia to have her mother back. We want Aazuria, and our current life is not compatible with that.”
“We have to decide,” he said in a low voice. “Do you want to continue this way—or make a sacrifice in order to give Aazuria a ridiculous, implausible, slim chance at life?”
“It’s quite easy when you put it that way.”
“The chance is so slim it’s almost not worth mentioning,” Trevain said despondently. “Maybe 0.01% or less.”
“But there’s still a chance,” Elandria said with a smile. She walked forward and touched his hand gently. “It’s easy. There was never any question. I will do anything you require.”
“You know, I never told my sister about us,” Sionna said as she lay on the floor of the chemistry lab, using her lab coat as a bla
nket. “I guess I was always afraid that she would torture me with awful lesbian jokes forever.”
“She makes enough lesbian jokes about herself,” Yamako said.
“Usually with respect to Aazuria,” Sionna replied with a sigh. “I swear! If we do manage to bring Aazuria back to life, Visola will probably make out with her more passionately than Trevain.”
Yamako giggled as she snuggled against Sionna’s side. “There’s something special about your Ramaris blood. You red-haired Vikings were always so hot-blooded compared to those cold and stony Vellamos. It’s like they have ice-water running through their veins. Even little Varia gives me the shivers sometimes.”
Sionna bolted upright quite abruptly.
“Whoa, Sio! Is everything okay?” Yamako asked.
“Cold-blooded. Ice-water in her veins,” Sionna muttered quickly. “I’m going about this all wrong, because she’s not like a stupid frog. She has a more complex physiology. The advanced cell structure—Varia! I need to get some of Varia’s blood.”
“I don’t think King Trevain is going to allow you to perform experiments on his daughter,” Yamako said with a frown.
“Just a bit of blood,” Sionna said, rising to her feet and zooming around the laboratory, hardly noticing Yamako’s presence. She also seemed to be unaware of the fact that she was working without any clothing, and with extremely messy hair.
Yamako grinned as she watched Sionna move around the research room naked.
Sionna continued to murmur to herself excitedly. “And if anyone has a natural tolerance to cold, it’s a pure sea-dweller like Aazuria. Not only does she have the natural ability to resist tissue damage due to the freezing process, but she has a tolerance built up from living her whole life in the Arctic Ocean, and the last ten years at Lake Vostok. She’s acclimatized to this. Her body can handle it.”
The Japanese princess was growing interested and lifted herself off the ground. “You’re making some pretty good points, Sio—but what about the whole ‘death’ factor?”
Sionna swiveled sharply, her green eyes alight with flame. “It’s not that difficult. I made sure she was frozen so quickly that it’s possible her brain never stopped functioning. I basically have to find a way to undo the damage done to her body by the high voltage.”
“Re-oxygenate her,” Yamako said, snapping her fingers. “We can use the enzyme synthesized in your serum. I can restore the normal sinus rhythm of electrical impulses to the heart immediately after thawing.”
“Sweet Sedna below,” Sionna whispered.
“So it can be done,” Yamako said softly.
“Oh, Sedna, I think so,” Sionna said, beginning to pace and wring her hands. “I really think so.”
“I guess I really did inspire you,” Yamako joked.
“Yes. Don’t go anywhere, because I think I need a lot more inspiration.”
“I’ll help any way I can,” Yamako said. “If you really did freeze her before she was technically brain-dead, then all we need is an advanced electrical jumpstart, and her body will do most of the work for us. My favorite piece of technology is the human body; there was never a more wondrous machine, perfectly designed to heal itself.”
Sionna smiled. “Everything suddenly seems possible. I feel like she’s in some kind of suspension, waiting for us to figure out this puzzle, and not really dead at all.”
“That’s exactly the way we should think about it,” Yamako said seriously. “We should focus more on healing her than bringing her back to life—it’s an easier concept to swallow. Let’s just pretend that she’s been in a coma.”
“You’re right, Yama. We can do this. I’ll get to work.”
“I’m going to get some comfortable clothes,” Yamako said, turning to leave. “Oh, and Sio?”
“Hmmm?”
“I’m looking forward to telling Kaito that she really is a zombie now.”
Sionna snorted in amusement. “That’ll be the easy part, darling. Think of how you’ll explain that his mommy sleeps with a girl every night.”
“Oh?” Yamako said with a smile. “Looking forward to that too.”
Chapter 31: The Arctic Flower
Trevain and Varia entered the hospital room, and were surprised to see that Aazuria had been removed from the cryonic casket. Sionna greeted them happily, moving over to usher them both into the room.
“I have really good news,” she said with a giant smile. “Her heart is beating again. She’s alive.”
“Really?” Varia asked, rushing to her mother’s side to touch her wrist. She was surprised to find that the skin was warm, and she looked up to the doctor with worry. “You fixed her, Aunt Sio?”
“Kind of,” Sionna responded. “We stabilized her; but she’s in a coma and may never wake up.”
“A coma?” Varia repeated blankly. “So she’ll always be like this?”
“It’s very likely,” Sionna said. “We have her on life support; a machine is helping her to breathe and the feeding tubes provide nutrients to her body. There is also a pacemaker helping to regulate her heart. I realize that it’s not exactly what you wanted, but nevertheless, even getting this far is a miracle.”
“It does not feel like a miracle to me,” Varia said softly. “Not yet. She is still sleeping forever, and I think that equals death. Maybe she’s warm now, and maybe her body has some basic functions, but I can’t speak to her. She’s not my mother.”
“But she is alive,” Sionna said with a frown. “She may be in a vegetative state, and she may never be able to move—but there is a chance…”
“There’s always a chance,” Varia said brokenly, as she pulled away from Aazuria. “I’m so tired of chances.”
“Hey,” Trevain said, kneeling to grasp Varia’s arm. “Try to be positive, okay? Sometimes things can’t happen all at once. She can’t just go from being frozen solid to ballroom dancing in ten seconds flat.”
“So kiss her,” Varia told him. “A thousand more times, until she wakes up.”
“I’ll try,” he told her, “but I’m not sure if that will work. Come on, Varia—let’s try to consider this a step forward. Progress happens in many slow, incremental stages. I promise I will keep trying to get her back to the way she was.”
Varia shook her head. “It is so draining to be praying and hoping all the time. If you cannot bring her back, then you should stop trying. I’m not a baby. I know that it’s impossible.”
Trevain closed his eyes when his daughter left the room. He looked up at his aunt miserably.
“You probably shouldn’t have brought her along,” Sionna told him. “She’s too young to understand.”
“I don’t even understand,” Trevain said, rubbing his forehead. “What is this? She’s going to be like this forever?”
“Possibly. It’s a medical triumph,” Sionna said firmly. “I’m not a magician. I’ve done more than can be expected of any doctor beneath the sea or above it. Cut me some slack.”
“I know. This is really great, Aunt Sio,” he said, trying to convince himself of what he was saying. “Really great.”
They stood around awkwardly for several moments, feeling the crushing weight of the silence in the room. The only sounds came from the machines supporting Aazuria’s life, and Trevain wondered to himself whether this had been worth everything. He wondered to himself whether it had been worth losing Elandria to bring Aazuria back to life if this would be her life. He wondered if this was more traumatizing to Varia than seeing her mother in the coffin, and he wondered about whether Aazuria herself would have preferred to be pathetically half-alive, or calm and complete.
Was he causing more suffering to her by trying to extract her from death? Trevain suddenly reached into his pocket, pulling out a handkerchief. He extended his arm and handed it to Sionna wordlessly.
The doctor took the handkerchief curiously, opening the fabric. She saw five fish scales sitting in the center of the embroidered fabric. She sighed. “Are you serious, kid? It was an allego
ry.”
“Every legend is based on truth,” he said, quoting the phrase that Aazuria herself had uttered.
Sionna lifted her shoulders helplessly. “Fine. I’ll get a mortar and pestle.”
“I’m so ashamed, Aazuria,” Trevain said, as he sat at her bedside, holding her hand. “I shouldn’t have done this to you. I should have let you go. But I had to try, you know?” He had been sitting by her bedside for so long that he had gotten a more comfortable chair moved into the room. He closed his eyes tightly, leaning down until his forehead touched her arm. “I still believe that one day you’ll wake up. I have to believe that in order to stay sane.”
When he breathed in, his nostrils were filled with the scent of flowers. Vachlan had recently brought several large bouquets to the room, assuring his grandson that the fragrance would be alluring enough that Aazuria would have to wake up to see the beautiful plants from which it came. Everyone tried their own little strategy. Visola had spent about an hour telling Aazuria’s corpse about all of the exciting events she would miss if she did not wake up sooner rather than later. Elandria even came sometimes, when Mother Melusina allowed her off her short leash, and sang softly to Aazuria. She kissed her sister’s brow lovingly and told her stories about her experiences training with the Sisters of Sedna. She shared saddened looks with Trevain, and did not speak to him directly.
They both could feel the pain caused by the gulf they had ripped between them. Trevain knew the pressing question on each of their minds. Was it worth destroying their marriage so that Aazuria could be a vegetable? Had Mother Melusina’s prayers and magic been good for anything? It was Sionna and Yamako who had been able to revive Aazuria. Even so, there were moments that Trevain and Elandria looked at each other and knew that Aazuria’s body was just a lifeless, empty body. She was warm now; the frozen vegetables had been steamed in the microwave, but they were no closer to being alive and growing on the plant. Her condition was death; it was an irreversible condition.
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