In the world, I was sitting up on a bed cradled in Etachs' arms, eyes closed, breathing even, but otherwise still. In my mind I was sitting tailor-style on a dusty floor in a dusty and disheveled library. My hands laid across the top of a dusty leather train trunk, with my forehead pressed against the cool metal lock, breathing evenly. In that place, inside Tatiana's memory warehouse, the thread of our communion bond wound between my fingers, I took a deep breath, and closed my eyes, letting myself sink deeper. I went down through the years that Tatiana and I had spent on the run, on the road. Through lessons taught and learned. I pushed forward, trying not to flinch when I hit the fog. The fog was the protection that I had built to keep myself out of this, so that I would never know what it was like to have a mother, a family, a pod. I didn’t want to know it, I didn’t want to miss it, but I wanted my sister more than I didn’t want this pain. The fog was a swirling mass of pink and orange, and it felt cold against my skin, a million needles pricking into me. Everything I was as a person begging me not to cross this line, not to go here, but I pushed past it anyway.
Sinking deeper, the fog turned more sinister, darker. The cold penetrated my skin to the bone, the little needle pricks turning to bites, and scratches. I kept my breathing steady, trying not to flinch, eyes squeezed tightly shut until there was nothing, no more pinching, prodding, coldness. There was the tinkling of crystal and a smell, something familiar and warm filling my nose. The instant before I felt warm arms circling me, I remembered the smell. Orange blossoms. I opened my eyes into a field of copper hair. I lifted my arms to wrap them around the slim frame of my mother. Her arms, gentle as a spring rain, held me to her chest. My arms around her back felt smaller than they were now. She pulled away from me smiling, but her eyes were dripping tears.
"Mama?" I said, my voice childish in pitch and timbre. I put my hand to her cheek, feeling the wetness of her tears on my tiny child hands, not yet slender and long with age, but short and chubby with baby fat, the hands of the child I was the last time I saw her. She didn't say anything, simply pulled my child's frame into her lap, cradling me as though I were a baby, her head turning to press a kiss against my palm. As she held me, her torso swaying back and forth, her hair sweeping across her face like a curtain, her eyes turned down to look at me, she began to hum. The song that I could never quite remember. I relaxed in her arms, focusing on her voice. After a moment she began to sing the words.
"In her voice, the river runs.
In her eyes, the rain falls.
She shines brighter than the suns.
Uncontainable in walls.
Her words fall like rain.
Her hair, a shining sea.
Feeling all the world’s pain.
And defeating it with glee.
She is never-ending.
Life springs from her fingers.
Wheat in the wind, twisting bending,
In her blood, it lingers.
Her name it means grace,
The world answers her call.
Here then gone without a trace,
Anais the Eternal."
My eyes sprang open, and I stared into my mother's face. She stared back, her smile sad. She leaned down and kissed my forehead, and then opened her arms. I felt the tears on my own face as I pushed myself back into the fog. I inhaled sharply as I came back into Tatiana’s mind. Forehead pressed against the metal of the lock, still cool beneath my skin. I sat up and twisted the dials on the complicated lock. My fingers moved deftly and without hesitation. I made the final turns and heard the lock disengage with a resounding click. I flung the lid open and inside was my sister, looking just as wasted as she did in the real world. Skin pallid and stretched taut against her bones. She laid among a pile of scattered boxes and papers. Her eyes were closed, and she was humming the lullaby my mother had sung for me in her every shuddering exhale.
I got up on my knees, bending at the middle, the edge of the trunk bit into my hips as I reached down into its depths. It was much larger on the inside, but she was still crammed into the only space that wasn’t covered in papers and boxes. I hooked my hands beneath her armpits and pulled her out, she was lighter than air. I toppled backward, cradling her against my chest as my shoulders hit the dusty concrete. I lay there for a moment feeling her narrow and bony frame in my arms. I slowly, carefully got to my feet, shifting her limp body over my shoulder. She was still humming the song as I followed the thread back to my own mind. Before I turned a corner, to begin my journey back to reality. I looked back at the lock, a tear ran down my face, it stood unlocked, the dials on the front still turned to the combination: Anais Eternal.
Veni, Vidi, Vici
She smells like Jasmine and I can't tell if this is a dream or not. I've been inside here for so long; I can't decide what's real or not. I feel the breeze on my cheek as though the lid is open. I feel hands under my arms, lifting me. I have fantasized about this so many times that I know I can't trust my own mind. I keep humming the song my mother wrote for Anais, in the hopes that she remembers it. In the hopes that she will figure out the lock. I feel my body slump against hers, feel her breathing, her beating heart, more precious to me than any gem or gold. More precious than life itself.
◆◆◆
I take a gasping breath, pulling air into my lungs as I come back into myself. Leaning into Etachs' embrace, I look over to the bed next to me just in time for Tatiana's eyes to dart around, finding my face, finding Etachs, finding Ayesha. Her eyes filled with tears, joy spilling over in liquid expression, sliding from the corner of her eyes into her hair. Her body still gaunt, still pale, but somehow looking alive in a way it did not before.
A strangled noise escaped from my throat, as I tried to move towards her, my traitor body weak and protesting, but Etachs was there. Their strong arms circled around me, helping me to my feet, to take shaking steps towards my sister. My arms slipping beneath her neck, fingers tangling into her hair, as I leaned over her, burying my face against her skin. Her arms, too thin, too weak, wrapped around my back, as Etachs held me by the waist to keep me on my feet. We stayed that way for a long time, until Ayesha, tired of not being included in the love fest, gave a temperamental squawk.
Tati laughed weakly through her tears, sniffling as I pulled away to lean back against Etachs. Ayesha hopped up Tatiana's body, stopping when she was perched upon her breastbone, her neck stretching forward so she could examine Tatiana. Her head twitched, her intelligent eyes peering at Tatiana's weeping face before she stepped forward, sliding her beak along Tatiana's jaw and making a very un-Ayesha-like sound. She cooed and nuzzled into Tatiana's neck, her feathers puffing out in an unguarded expression of her relief and love. Tatiana lifted a skeletal hand to stroke Ayesha, turning her head to cradle the bird, her chest shaking with the sobs pushing their way out of her.
No words were said for a long time. The four of us, Fae, Himlani, and Raven, all sat on one bed, snuggled together like a litter of puppies, weeping and touching and just remembering what it was like to be with each other. All through the night we stayed, no words, just relishing the knowledge that we had gotten her back, that she was home, and home was wherever we were all together.
As the sun rose, it found Tatiana laying between Etachs and me. We each curled against one side of her, our fingers laced together over her belly. Her arms curled around our shoulders, Ayesha nestled into the spread of her hair, her head tucked beneath her wing. Tatiana sighed and spoke at last.
"I have been lying here all night trying to decide if this is a dream. If it is, please don't let anyone wake me; it's the best dream I've ever had."
I opened my eyes and met Etachs' look. They smiled at me, a quiet, knowing smile, that said a million things in the silence. I smiled back and murmured into Tatiana's shoulder, "it's not a dream, Tati, you're here with us."
"How do you know?" was all she said.
"Because if it was a dream, you wouldn't feel this," said Etachs, their laughter apparent in their voice as they
pinched Tatiana lightly with their claws. Tati yelped and then the three of us dissolved into laughter as she squeezed us against her. After a few moments, her laughter trailed off. She took a deep breath.
"How long was I gone?" she asked quietly, the wistful tone of her voice gone, replaced by a hollowness that frightened me badly. I sat up, propping myself up with my elbow, and looked down at her face.
"Do you really want to know?" I asked, eyebrows raised.
"Yes."
Etachs sat up, a mirror of my pose, their brows drawn down. "Why?" they asked.
"Because... I don't know. After they took me, I… hid and time was different there."
"In the trunk?" I asked. Etachs looked at me, the question written on their face so plainly I nearly laughed.
"Yes, in the trunk."
"What the hell are you talking about?" said Etachs, their gaze sliding back and forth between Tati and I like a tennis spectator in the time before. I laughed and explained about Tati's cavernous memory warehouse, and the way she had kept us safe by piling all her knowledge about me and my magic, and about Etachs into the trunk with them. Along with some other things. Etachs' frown deepened as I explained, their gaze turning to Tatiana as if for confirmation.
Tatiana told Etachs and me about the searchlight, the invaders into her mind, and the frantic race to the trunk with the library cart. Which must have left the wheel marks on the dusty floor that I had seen. The empty shelves, the places she had emptied to keep her knowledge from the Himlani invader.
"How could they get into her mind like that?" I asked Etachs.
"Well..." Etachs said haltingly, "Cylvre and Tarq would probably be better able to answer that question, but I do have some vague understanding..."
"Who?" said Tatiana, the confusion in her voice so childlike that I almost laughed again.
"There is much to tell you, Tati, and I promise that we will, but not right this moment." I turned to look back at Etachs, waiting for an explanation.
"Well, so you know that we use a lot of implants and serums to maintain our bodies, and to control the species that we... well you know..." I nodded, remembering the explanation that Cylvre had given me about the docility serum that had been fed to the Humans through their implants and ports to keep them civil and quiet, and without language to protest. "There are other types of serums, but one that is prized above all others and used very rarely because it is so difficult to produce is our Manas'su Serum."
"Manas'su..." I rolled the word around my mouth, testing out its unfamiliarity, the word foreign to me, even though I spoke Himlani.
"Yes, it is sacred and protected, and can only be made from a plant that was indigenous to our homeland. We have managed with great care to cultivate it on our ships, but the extract cannot be synthesized. We tried long ago with disastrous results."
"But what does it do?" I asked.
"It invades your mind," Etachs said flatly. "It allows a Himlani to wander around inside your brain as if they own the place. It is only really done when someone has committed a grievous crime or within certain other circumstances."
"Like what?"
"Oh... I don't really know..." said Etachs. "You really would have to ask Cylvre or Tarq. I was a defect long before I would have been privy to that kind of information."
"Are you two ready to tell me what the God-pounding fuck you're talking about?" asked Tatiana, her eyebrows raised looking between the two of us. Etachs and I both burst into laughter at her plaintive tone. Once we got a hold of ourselves, we started to fill Tatiana in on all that she had missed. The liberation of the first Defect camp, and the Fae and Humans that we had collected since then. Even the challenges we had faced logistically of feeding and clothing them, and the discovery of this place. We left out the stuff between Etachs and I but gave her a mostly complete picture anyway. When we were finished, Tatiana was silent for a long time, her face conflicted.
"So how long has it been?" she asked quietly. I hesitated, but Etachs swiped their claws through Tati's hair with such tender affection my heart almost broke.
"Eight months or so, nearly a year." Tatiana closed her eyes and nodded.
"And, where are we?" she asked, looking at me.
"You remember those bases that the Humans used to build once they started building the big bombs? The ones with the weird names?"
"D.U.M.B.s," said Tatiana without hesitation. “Deep Underground Military Bases.”
"YES!" I shouted, having been trying to think of it since we had found it. "We are in one of those! The Himlani ship is over the eastern half of it. This place is enormous, and they never knew it was here. It is deeper than the sensors on their Sentinels can reach."
"I think they know it's here now," said Tati.
"Why would you say that?" said Etachs, bemused. Tatiana and I looked at each other, then at Etachs, realization blooming across their face like a rose. The three of us fell back into a wriggling mass of giggles.
We spent the next few hours filling Tati in on all that we had done while she was a prisoner. My terminal chirped throughout, as did Etachs', but we largely ignored them. There was a small kitchenette in this medical bay, and someone had thoughtfully stocked it. We pushed the two beds together and talked, eating between stories. Once we had told her all about our adventures and eaten our fill, Tatiana looked noticeably brighter, but as the hours wore on, she fell into an exhausted sleep. I felt my own energy waning, but I knew that there were still things to do. She was nestled against my shoulder with Etachs sitting with their legs folded behind them at the foot of the bed. I picked up my terminal and started to go through the notifications.
Our invasion had been largely successful. We had claimed two-thirds of the ship and set up barricades. There was still a small stronghold of Himlani and the fighting was currently at a standstill. We sustained losses, many of them Human, but some Fae as well as some Himlani, who were more often than not the first through the door for the element of surprise. We found through our other infiltrations of Himlani facilities that they were reluctant to raise their guns on their own kind. It seemed, however, that they had begun to mark them by the bronze scales left behind from my healing.
We also successfully invaded their network and, while the remaining Himlani were working to push us out, much of the information we sought was already within our grasp. I read through the reports that Tarq had been sending me on the hour, every hour. We now had the location of every Defect facility on the planet, as well as the Human farms, and invasion ships. My original plan had been just to get my sister back, but now that I had seen the full extent of the cruelty, this couldn't be the end. This planet was ours, Human and Fae, and we had to reclaim it for ourselves, and any Himlani that wished to stay peacefully. I wouldn't be able to be there to lead the charge like I had this time. Not for all of them, but we could share what we had done, and light the spark of revolution in the camps. We had to; there was no other way to take back our planet.
I glanced up from my terminal to see that Etachs had been reading theirs as well. When their eyes met mine, I could see the same resolve I was feeling mirrored in their expression.
"We aren't done yet are we?" they said, not really a question, but I could hear the bone-deep weariness in their voice.
"Would Marx be done?" I replied. They looked at me for a long moment, their purple eyes sliding over my face.
"No."
"Then neither are we." I gently extricated myself from Tati and got to my feet, raising my arms above my head in a deep stretch, my back curving as I worked the long hours of minimal movement out of my muscles. "There are things we need to do first, we can liberate along the way. But we need to find a way to spread our message, without us physically being there, and without alerting the Himlani to our plans.”
"How do we do that?"
"I don't know yet. I am still working on it. I think we need to meet with the others." Etachs nodded, but I could see the reluctance to leave Tatiana written plainly on their fac
e. "I don't want to leave her either, but we are going to have to, just for a little while. Just for now." Heaving a large sigh, Etachs slid off the bed and came to my side.
"No time like the present," they said and curled an arm around my shoulders. I turned to look up at them, a million things to say on my lips, but knowing it was not the time to say them. Etachs smiled a little and nodded as if they saw them all and acknowledged that they existed and that there would be a time for them later. We turned and walked out of the medical bay together in search of the others, leaving Tatiana to rest.
We held a meeting in Mess Hall D. We must have looked like a motley crew, all clustered around the table, holding plastic cups of tea. These were my generals in a war that none of us wanted but had been thrust into. Twyla and Kai, Tarq, Cylvre, Ozwa, Hydea, Gryst, and Casys, plus seven Fae that we had picked up along the way, and nine Humans. With Etachs, and Tatiana and I, there were nine from each species and, although Tatiana was not present for this meeting, I could fill her in later.
"Our work is not done friends," I started. "We have accomplished much with all of your help and sacrifice, and I am here to beg more of both from you. We need to liberate this planet in total. There are more Defect Camps, and Human Farms, and Fae Processing Facilities. There are more invasion ships and more invaders. We need to make this a planet where Fae and Human and Himlani can live together in harmony as the Fae and Humans have for millennia. This time there will be no secrets, this time we will need to work together and not hide from one another. There will be no shadow puppetry, no secret manipulation. We have seen what not being a cohesive unit has wrought. If the Humans and Fae could have banded together from the start, we could have prevented this invasion from the get-go." I looked around the table, meeting the eyes of all I had gathered.
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