#Ink(heart)-vember

[mschivs-works]

[star-farer]

clone of solitude

Summary: When the hands that wipe your tears away are your own. AU: HFSW, Ik'aad Taglist: @kybercrystals94 @fionas-frenzy @padawancat97 @margindoodles2407 @dreamsight73 @groguandthebadbatch @comfy-vember

Comfy-vember 2024, Day 22: Lamplight

She recalls reaching up, ever up, arms outstretched beyond her head. She recalls whining shrill and high, shrieking her tantrums with hands that clenched open and shut, tugging at hems of clothing rough and old.

A laugh would rumble in the air like warm seaquakes, or a sigh would flow softly as a shoal flitting past clear windows. Arms would surround her body, even littler than she is now, and lift her up into the firm hold of a father.

At times, it was for him alone she reached. To wind her arms around his neck, to rest her head upon his shoulder, to be comforted with the simple embrace of his beating heart and kind voice.

More often, however, her demands were for all and sundry.

The doll sitting too far above with taunting eyes. The fruit tucked away in a cabinet. The object of her desire held away from her grasping paws.

Her arms would stretch, and her voice would insist, and she would look up, always up, ever up. Once her wishes would be granted, once she would be denied.

But now, alone in her bed, alone in her shared chambers, her Kaminoan caretaker elsewhere delving even at such dark hours into alchemical realms, Omega recalls reaching, ever up, ever beyond her head, for the lamps glowing white and set in high ceilings.

“The sun!” she recalls crying out at last, one stubby finger pointing with the hand that does not use her father’s shoulder for support. “The sun!”

His face had drawn quiet, pinching together as if in pain. “Nayc, ad’ika,” he had spoken in silent voice, “You are mistaken. That is only a lamp of the Kaminii’se.”

Perhaps her confusion had shown, for his lips had twisted in a rueful smile. He had laughed, subdued though it had been, and brought her down to sit upon his lap.

“Tech could expound upon their differences better, ner kar’ta. But I will tell you what I know as best as I am able.”

He had waved one arm above. “These lamps, they shine with the magic of our creators. Therein lies their power: in the hands of the Kaminoans.”

“But the sun—” and then, she had seen a madness in his wide eyes, wonderful and awestruck— “The sun is not one that derives its glory from another. From within itself, by means we do not understand, it glows with strength unimaginable.”

“May I see it, Buir?” had been her request, breathless from the brilliance he had described.

And—

She closes her eyes, even if it is the same void before and beneath her eyelids. She turns to her side and pulls her blanket up under her chin, imagining phantom hands tucking her in gently and stroking her hair.

Oh, his face, his face, how great his anguish had been, strewn about the lines and scars, edging along the dark ink that shrouded him half in the image of death. There is no doubt she had seen tears shining in his eyes, a thin layer of shimmering gauze. If the lamps were the undersea images of the sun, his eyes could replace the stars.

From the back of his throat had come a strange noise, and a smile erupted from his crumbling features for her alone.

“Perhaps one day, kar’ika, you will see it. Perhaps one day, I shall hold your hand in mine and show you the world above the seas.”

The pillow provides soft ground to bury the tears flowing from her eyes, presently. She had not understood the reason for his sorrow that day.

She had not known it was the last moment she would spend in his company.

The air grows heavy and stifling, the darkness muffling both breath and thought. Suddenly, she finds herself yearning for the light, warm and true. Suddenly, she finds herself longing for strong arms and tender voices and dear kisses that chase her fears away.

She leans over her bed, she fumbles for the stand at her bedside.

Suddenly, she finds herself in need of the stars in the eyes of her aliit.

Upon the stand is a canister of glass, encased in a sliding sheath of metal. Desperate fingers graze the handle, and she pulls its shutter open.

She breathes a sigh of tear-stained relief at the sight of the familiar gleam of blue.

Nala Se has allowed her this kindness, to keep to herself in this vessel the luminescent beings of the sea. They are studied, these unseen and numerous creatures, in the many laboratories of the subnautical fortress. As a viscous blur, their slow pulsating glow is the only surety she bears that they are indeed filled with life.

She sits there, in the dark, watching her little blue lamp, hands clutching her blanket to her chest. Her cheeks are wet, and she tastes salt at the edges of her lips.

A year has passed since she sat last in the dear company of her buire. A year since she has heard their hearty laughter, seen their ever-wide smiles. A year since she has been torn cold from love.

She knows little of them now, their whereabouts forever lost to fleeting speech and remarks whisked away from her ears too swiftly. They are upon one island, battling the undead, and only a moment later they have crossed onto the next.

There are tales of their prowess. Of one with curious devices aplenty and diction too particular for any clone. Of another who rends rock asunder with his bare hands and speaks in thunder. Of a third with a tongue like a sharp lash and sharper arrows that forever strike their mark. Of a leader whose bold words bear fangs and moves quicker than wit.

But that is all they are, here at the end of the day: tales, mere words, crafted by men who have not known them as she. Who have not seen their true colours, a lively harmony of joy and valor. Who have not heard their gentle lullabies fill the air with the tenets of soldiers and the legends of sailors.

She pulls the pillow before her face, holds it close against her heart like a doll of red and black. Her lamp glows, her sheets rustle, she sits weeping unspoken tears in the dead of sea-night.

And her mind reaches for the shadows of her lost loves.

[mschivs-works]

[mschivs-works]