#and then i read laurelin's 'longing for heaven hours: advent edition' post

[queenlucythevaliant]

The Weary World

For the colonists of Tycho-16b, Sol burned out on Christmas Eve night. This irony was not lost on the Mayphis sisters.

When Iza rose early on Christmas Eve, Emmy was already up and fiddling with the fuel cell settings. There were warm spiced buns on the table: not quite cinnamon, but sweet and goey all the same.

Most of the Christmas decorations from Earth had been lost, but they had managed to hold on to Mom's set of Dresden angel figurines. During Advent, they shared the shelf with Emmy's collection of model starships, which Iza privately found rather funny. Great big space angels towering over little metal ships, like in a pulpy sci-fi book. Still, the angels were beautiful: a small, lovely remnant of the home that no longer was.

For the most part, that Christmas Eve passed like any other. All afternoon, Iza and Emmy took turns retelling Christmas stories that they remembered from childhood: "The Gift of the Magi," "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," "It's a Wonderful Life," and so forth. After dinner, they prayed together and Emmy read the Nativity story out of the paper Bible. The pages made pleasant, nostalgic sounds as they turned.

Although there was a viewing party scheduled at the high school, they had decided not to go. It felt irreverent in more ways than one.

There was very little talk between sisters as dusk fell. Emmy just gestured to the backyard with a jerk of her chin, and Iza followed. They dragged travel cots out into the gathering dark and set them side by side in the dry, yellow grass.

It was Iza who broke the silence. "'It's the End of the World As We Know It' could be a Christmas song now, you know."

Emmy looked blank for a moment, but then she tossed her head back and laughed. "And the wise men said, 'We saw his star when it rose in the east, but then it went supernova and now we're lost,'" she retorted.

Iza chuckled, but the end of it turned into a sigh. "Why don't I make us a fire?"

"Yeah. That sounds nice."

There weren't many trees on Tycho-16b. Not like in upstate New York, where Iza and Emmy had spent their childhood, where the trees grew thick and dense and covered up the sky. On Tycho-16b, the sky was clear and endless. Picking out Sol was easy, once you knew which direction was which. Even though the fire was blazing hot now, Iza looked up and shivered. Soon, soon it would be gone.

Wordlessly, Emmy came over and arranged a blanket over her sister's shoulders. She moved to return to her own cot, but Iza grabbed her arm and held on. "Stay here," she said.

It was eerily quiet with everyone else in the neighborhood across town at the high school, so eventually Emmy started to sing carols. Her voice was high and sweet, if a little mournful: "They looked up and saw a star shining in the East beyond them far, and too the earth it gave great light and so it continued—"

After a while, Iza tucked her head into the crook of her sister's neck and slid halfway onto her lap. Emmy kept singing, softly. "O Little Town of Bethlehem," "O Holy Night." Somehow, she'd never noticed just how many Christmas carols mentioned the stars.

They were almost asleep when the flash of brightness appeared just where they were expecting it. Instantly, Emmy and Iza were both wide awake.

Emmy leapt to her feet, roughly shrugging Iza off her in the process. Bright silver lit up Sol's little twinkling diamond like the lighting of a match. Almost violent, really. The instinct to do something coursed through Emmy's blood, as though she could somehow stop it from happening.

Still on her cot, Iza made a kind of choked noise. "Maybe I shouldn't have watched it again," she whispered.

When the brightness dimmed a bit, Emmy flopped back down beside her sister, still looking up. "I never understood why you watched it the first time."

Light traveled slowly for the children of the FTL generation. It took light waves years to reach places that they could take their ships in a matter of months. For the children of FTL space travel, light was a thing that could be outrun.

Earth's sun had gone nova six and a half Universal Standard Years before, in June. It had engulfed the earth in flame. Iza had seen it from the viewport of the last ship as it fled away into the stars. Emmy had not; she'd hidden in their cabin with her reading pad and a cup of synthetic tea.

Now, the last of the light had caught up to them. Iza had cried all night, the first time.

She wasn't crying now. Her voice was almost a sob, but her eyes were dry. "It's not really the end, not yet. You know that, right?"

"'Rage, rage against the dying of the light,'" replied Emmy.

"'All shall be well and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well,'" Iza countered.

Sol was silver-bright and dead. Six and a half light-years away, Earth and all its cities and mountains and oceans were nothing but space dust. And we're here, thought Emmy, suddenly bone-weary at the thought.

They laid back down after a while, Iza resting against the hollow of Emmy's body, radiating warmth. They stayed that way for a long, long time. Emmy's eyes drifted shut, but Iza kept gazing up and up. The fire burned down to coals, then went out.

Finally, with a yawn, Iza roused and shook herself. "We should go back inside," she said.

"You don't want to sleep out here?"

"Not really. It's Christmas tomorrow, remember? Gotta be up early."

Emmy squinted at her watch. "It's after midnight now, actually. Merry Christmas, Iz."

"Merry Christmas," Iza replied. Then, after a moment, "I wonder how much wearier the world can get before Christ finally comes back?"

"Oh, c'mon, you know it can always get wearier. But then, I think you were right before. All shall be well."