Balmas

Breathless Dead

Secondhand grief wraps one icy fist around her heart and squeezes the breath out of her.

She's failed, she knows. Teach me, Cerberus says. And she doesn't know how to help her learn. Let me follow you, and forget, she says. And Alexa can do nothing but remember. This hurts too much to bear. Make me forget them. Help me not hurt anymore.

And oh, if Alexa knew how not to hurt, what a world this would be.

What do you say to someone who, with all the earnestness and face of a puppy, has just asked you to help them die?

No. That's the wrong word. This isn't death. She has to hold to that, has to hold to the idea that after all of this, this isn't a goodbye forever. The Lethe will rinse her friends clean, but… they will come back.

She hopes.

But still… Something will emerge on the other side of that rift that looks like Cerberus, but shares nothing with her. No memories, no pain of abandonment, no love for the woman who wronged her.

And that feels an awful lot like death.

"That… isn't my decision to make."

Because it isn't. Just as it isn't hers to take, life isn't hers to force on someone else. If, a year ago, someone had told her there was a way to forget and had forbidden her entrance, she'd never have forgiven them.

But knowing what she knows now… Knowing what she became, what she can yet become…

"I don't know your heart, Cerberus. I don't know your story. I don't know why they left, and why you stayed. Would love to! Offer of listening ears still stands! I would like nothing more than to learn about you, become friends with you. If you decide to cross the rift, I will stand behind and respect your decision.

"But if you're asking to come specifically with me, you should know I'm not crossing the rift."

And from there, it all spills out. She can't sit here, and not tell her why. Can't not tell her why she understands wanting to not exist anymore. The stories tell about Molech, tell about her, but don't mention what it does to you. A year ago, she'd be sprinting towards that river. A year ago, she'd have signed up for this crew if she knew there was a chance to forget.

Talks about how it still hurts, some days. She still remembers. She was the Pallas, and no amount of forgetting will change that. But sometimes, she can fill herself with enough other things that… it hurts less. She can bear to be Alexa--can even enjoy it, most days! Can move on, and learn from the pain.

"I do think you're right to leave," she admits. "Being here… it seems like it's hurting you. It's that old collar, worn through, chafing. Whether it's through the Rift or with the rest of us, you need to kick that collar off. Things do get better, but only once you get away from the things hurting you, and give yourself a chance to heal."

Breathless Dead

It's wrong of her to want to fix this, but she does. If only she had the right words, surely she could do something about this. She could erase years of hurt, bring fond memories to the surface, have the dog smiling. It hurts to see someone love so hard and so long that it turns to loathing, to see the space that used to fit a person rub and chafe until all that's left is festering blisters.

But it's not her place. She doesn't know the full story and, more importantly, she's been asked not to.

"I've never been in your situation," she says, as if by feeling out the shape off the words she can shape out the feelings. "When I left my father, it was less abandonment and more deliberate escape.

"But even then, after I'd done my best to make sure I'd never see him again, I still built myself around him. I still shaped myself by what he wanted me to be, still craved the approval he'd never give me. And it wasn't until I was dragged into this that I could meet other people, and find other sources of love.

"It kind of sounds like you could keep talking to yourself. But I've been there, and it's lonely."

Breathless Dead

It's strange. All morning, she wandered this station, content to meet any new sights in perfect solitude. And only now, with tails slinking away, only one hound at her side, does she feel lonely.

She considers the dog. Listens to the voice. Raises one arm invitingly, as if for a hug.

"D'you... want to talk about them?"

Hurriedly, she adds, "You don't have to if you don't want to, of course. I don't want to open old wounds. But..."

Well, she's heard that tone of voice before. She's used that tone of voice before. Remembering those who aren't around anymore, for one reason or another.

"Sometimes," she admits, "it's nice to remember people the way they were. There are friends that... Well, that I don't know what happened to them. Lost track of them. Got reassigned. Disappeared. I know some of them must have survived, because I've met their children, but all I have of them is memories and stories. So...

"Would you tell me their story?"

Breathless Dead

Alexa wanders from Cerberus to Cerberus, meeting each of their eyes in turn. Civilization after civilization ends in their eyes, and it dawns on her that she doesn't recognize most of them. A hundred guttering candleflames, a thousand bygone styles, all remembered here and nowhere else.

Humanity seeded the cosmos. Their hands touch every planet, their servitors litter every continent.

How many times over, she wonders? How many empires? How long since humanity fled Gaia for safer waters?

And yet…

"I don't think you're right," she says, finally.

She continues to stare at each set of demises in turn, each set of canine eyes, but now with purpose. Searching.

"Or. Hmm.

"You're right that everything ends here. Civilizations end. Empires are overthrown. Even the greatest buildings end in decay and ruin. Nothing lasts, remember that you will die, and so on. Hades collects the bounties, and the universe moves on.

"But that doesn't make it its purpose.

"An artist writes a symphony. They die, and in time, all manuscripts decay and are lost. None recall their work but the dead. Was it written to decorate Hades' realm, or is that simply the end result?

"A couple love each other. They share their time, make memories. Travel. Build families, touch lives. In time, one and then both die. Was their love nothing more than a monument for Hades?

"Yes, things end. We all end up here, in the afterlife. Hades collects his due of all. And maybe you're even right of empires and kingships and power.

"But small scale? On the personal level? That doesn't rob the things we do of their meaning. There's worth in building, even if it falls. There's value in loving, even if the relationship ends. There's joy in living, even when we die."

Breathless Dead

It would be preferable if comprehension dawned like the sun--if a wave of light had broken the horizon, clearly illuminated the untrod paths of thought, and all she had to do was walk them to their conclusion.

Alexa can't help but feel that comprehension is coming like trench warfare.

All around her, dogs huddle and press for attention. Has she pet that one yet? She's sure there was one with that pattern, but was it fuzzy or metallic?

And isn't that just proving Cerberus's point? She wants to say that they could be equals. They could give her pets, and she could want them. What's stopping them from creating something she could find useful?

But already, she can feel the lie dying in her throat. They can be equals, yes. But only if she wants them to be. Only as long as she tolerates them. Only as long as she lowers herself to be like them, or raises them to be like her. Equality, but only on her terms.

Surely power to kill isn't the only metric? Power to give? Power to use? But what else is power good for, if not to push yourself onto the world? What is power, robbed of its teeth?

The dog metaphor makes it harder to swallow, somehow. She knows better than to pit herself against the gods. She had front row seats on what pitting yourself against the gods got you, thanks much for the reminder.

But to sit and have someone--have a dog--tell you that the only way you can bargain with the gods is by being cute--

But is it wrong?

She's seen the philosophers. Seen the amount of state-sponsored work, all to uncover whether the rituals are wrong. Whether maybe, there's a better way. Arguing with each other, arguing with leaders, arguing for change, for greater purity of understanding.

The ceremonies. The rituals. The rites, the prayers. All, nothing more than clever tricks to please indulgent masters?

It would…

She's staring at nothing in particular, fingers working mechanically with the force of thought.

It's galling, to have it put in her face like this. The gods don't need anything from them, from servitor, from human. They never have. Why does the sun shine brighter when offered this than that? Why does Poseidon grant passage through his waters to some, and not others? They don't need to be worshiped. The gods will continue without them, and have done for eons.

She stares at the neon around them, at the advertisements promising to bring the gods to heel if you just invest wisely. Suddenly, she can all too easily see herself in those same ads. Offer this to Zeus for favor in kingship. Perform this augury to divine the will and favor of Athena in battle. Pay the gods, and they will pay you in return.

And all along, arguing from false premises.

"No wonder those in power want things to stay the same," she croaks.

Breathless Dead

Alexa lets out a most undignified snort of a chuckle.

"Of course they want the past to last forever. That's when they won."

Because the dog isn't wrong. She'd told herself, for two hundred years, that she knew exactly what she was. That she could never be anything else. She was the point of a spear, hammered to shape, sharpened to a razor's edge. She told herself it until she believed it, until suddenly finding out that she wasn't all but shattered her to the wind. She had to fall so she could find out what pieces were left.

And she, only one woman. Only one mind's worth of ego, of inertia, of unwillingness to pick up pieces long shattered. How much worse for an empire? How hard could an empire cling to that self image? How much rot and decay could set in because fixing it would mean acknowledging how bad things had become? How many crews could come here before Nero had to acknowledge her own desperation?

Two hundred years and change of heroes. Her own daughter...

Idly, her hands explore the dogs--dig behind ears to find that one spot to melt a dog, see how many legs she can make kick with a single belly rub. It's the perfect activity to let her fingers do while she ponders.

"I am curious," she says, slowly, sounding out each word as if preparing for the words to bite, "what your alternative is.

"Not to the affairs of empires. To that first bit, about bargaining with gods as they were. You talk as if you know a better way. And you are old enough that I could believe it.

"Were the power difference not so vast, I could believe that you could learn and grow with them. You could spend time with them. Learn of them. Find joy in their laughter. Know them, know what they want, as lovers do. How else could you know them as they changed? How else could you be familiar with them, to know their moods?

"The gods love, of course. And mortals may even love them back. But can there truly be a relationship so close between the two, when one side bears all the power?"

Breathless Dead

Which head does she talk to? Does it even matter, if they're all the same? Does it matter, then, if the same being speaks differently through different heads?

Slowly, Alexa lowers herself to sit on the stairs next to the dogs. To inspect them, to marvel at them, to line them up, profile for profile, against Rusty, and wonder. Same model, maybe? Similar series, certainly. Submodel, perhaps, or an earlier breed.

Without any of her own input, her hands dig in her bags, and come out with a wire brush and a small bottle of oil. She's always done her best thinking with her hands, and surely, one of these good dogs will want brushies.

"If you'd asked me that even a year ago, I wouldn't have hesitated to say yes," she admits. "Of course we know better now than you did then, of course we know what the gods want and how to appease them."

You, the one always sighing. You want brushies, don't you? Yeah, you do. Look at those mournful eyes. C'mere, let's get you cleaned up.

"But then I found out that the reason Hermes hasn't been seen for two hundred years is because I was guarding her daughter. And the Hermetics might have known, and still don't know what she wants?

"And let's not forget that Athena is, apparently, dead. And has been for centuries? And the only reason I found out was because the new war goddess showed up to kill her? And I don't even know her name, let alone what she wants."

Best steer clear, all things considered. Make due offerings if needed, but never draw attention. Bad enough when Athena was her mom, last thing she wants is to make friends with the new one.

"And Beljani was running around with a sword that Bella pulled from… somewhere. Because somebody we don't know answered a prayer.

"So, maybe we're a bit smarter about it. Maybe we benefited from the mistakes your age made. But it's still surprising to be so old and find how little I might actually know."

Breathless Dead

The Tunguska should have been called the Hubris.

How many planets were destroyed to create this? How many worlds, siphoned of resources, stripped mined to the core, all for this monument to vanity? She knows the answer for the Spear--knows how many resources were spent in its sky-blotting construction--and this at least matches that in size.

All for a branch office.

A branch office. A portable bank, coming straight to your door, secure in its readings, confident in its orbital calculations, barren of offerings to see them safe through the void.

It's a temple to avarice, a monument to personal achievement, an enormous, hubristic emblem of glorious, wasteful consumption. Look how much money I have. Look what a building I can afford to construct. Behold my works, ye mighty, and despair.

Pay no heed to the gods. Offer them no sacrifice--not unless they prove themselves, not unless they pony up, not unless they come to the bargaining table and offer some genuine quo for our quid. Fight them as you would any other enemy, force them to surrender to your might, slaughter Poseidon's children as you would the other species you've brought to extinction.

Their hubris would be terrifying, if it weren't so pathetic. To invoke the gods in the name of, of selling kitchen knives?!

The Tunguska is a monument, still, but from the other side of the table. See what they built. See how they thought.

See what we did to them.

She stalks the corridors, confronted at every corner by the neon mistakes of the past, and wonders how it must feel to be so confident, and so fatally, terribly wrong.

Breathless Dead

"You don't have to do this," she says severely.

Those are the rules, after all. This is a ritual, a humiliation, a celebration. And her role is to feign anger, no matter how her eyes crinkle at the corners, or how no-one can quite keep the smiles from their eyes.

She bounces from one set of arms to the next, and at each interchange, she reminds them that this is quite unnecessary, really, all of you, this isn't needed. And everywhere, people nod, and smile, and pass her along.

She's pretty sure she wasn't wearing a hat before, but there it is on her head--and without missing a beat, she grins at Arth'na, already swooping down on a fresh victim. Great progress she's making, Alexa notes. The young Alcedi asn't earned enough for a hermetic treatment, but already Arth'na's training is showing in the extra turn of speed, the litheness of motion, the--Alexa grins--the presence of more than one set of eyes on her.

"Not necessary," she calls, and can't keep the laughter out of her voice.

She bounces from arm to arm, noting with delight the progress being made, before finally bouncing into Ramses. Big bear hug, physical lift, and squeeze--and then with a whoop of surprise and laughter, she's lifted into the air and find's a spot on the shoulders of Iris, who is making fantastic strides on her apparent goal of being a living crane.

It's all she can do to keep a straight face, looking at all the faces out for her. But, she makes a heroic effort at a poker face as she lectures Ramses.

"You didn't have to do all of this just for me," she insists, cheeks tight with repressed smiles.

But oh, after so long staring out the windows, and maneuvering a ship the size of a city through the eye of a needle, and all under the oppressive pink glow…

They didn't have to do this. Which makes it mean so much more that they did.

Breathless Dead

Alexa takes the time to consider it--really imagine it. Ships, traveling between planets like sparks between points of light. Of machines, long dead, now spinning to life again. The galaxy, healing, living, as once it did before.

Gently, she strokes Dolce's fluff, seeing it in her mind.

No, no, not like it did before. Not as it does now, with each niche carefully built and filled by perfection. Mice and sheep built for service, ordained to be a product. Kaeri and Alcedi, destined to throw themselves gladly on the spear of other's dreams. Ranks of uniform masked scavengers, tearing apart ships and recycling them together. Constant iteration, all to fill the engine room with only those perfectly suited for the task.

A mix. Something new. Freedom to choose to work where they please, or not at all.

Freedom to travel. Lights zipping through Two hundred years of entropy and stagnation, ending in an explosion of culture. People, trapped in cycles of oppression, discovering new places, new ways to think.

Atlas, torn apart, scavenged for parts, and put together again. Not in search of perfection, in subsuming efficiency, in lives given in support of empire, but in impossibilities of expectations defied and redefined.

A world where the idea of being defined by your position is laughable.

"It's a good wish," she admits, and she can't keep the longing for that future out of her voice. Freedom--not just for her, but for everyone. Real freedom, the kind that can't be won individually.

She doesn't say it's worth it. It would be, absolutely. But it's not her wish. It's not her journey. She can't cross this rift for you.