Stardust

i just want your professional take on how many things in my dream symbolize dicks

—Homestuck, Andrew Hussie

     Stardust didn’t normally present much of a problem for Aston. His respiratory system was quite superior to that of most other oxygen-breathing species, thank you very much.

     Running through the pitch-black forest, though, while convection currents carried the vast majority of stardust in the atmosphere down to sea level, all the while burdened with a twenty-pound bag of gear—that caused him some trouble.

     He stumbled into camp gasping for breath, lungs burning, and bent over with his hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath enough to force words out of his mouth. Extremely important words. Imperative, really.

     “Wear a mask, dude,” Axel said hypocritically.

     Wordlessly wheezing, Aston stuck up his middle finger and jabbed it violently in Axel’s direction. He didn’t have time for this nonsense.

     Sage rose from her position squatting on the ground. In the shaking beam of her flashlight, the dried blood on Aston’s hands stood out brilliantly against his skin.

     “Ah—” she gasped, her hands falling to grasp at him uselessly, to grip his arms as he leaned his whole weight into her.

     “We have to go,” he finally panted, the spinning in his head slowing to a stop as more and more oxygen seeped back into his blood. “We have to go now.”

###

     It was easier for you to fall asleep on long car rides than it was for most. You, as a non-human, perceived yourself as having an extremely different relationship to the notion of motion sickness than humans did. Namely, a nonexistent one.

     (Any evidence your species was irrelevant to this trait could, to your mind, be discarded as Sage being a weirdo.)

     It was, of course, less common for you to fall asleep to begin with, but you’d had a very difficult few days and you were very tired.

     The train car sprawled out around you, a luxurious vision of gleaming hardwood and gold. You stretched out on your indulgently cushioned bench and occupied yourself with watching the meadow through the window, a scene so lush with blindingly verdant greens and bright dots of flowers, it looked overexposed.

     The door to your compartment slid open. You looked up and were surprised to see Sage standing in the doorway.

     “The doors,” she said, as if solving a problem that had plagued her for years.

     “Hello to you, too,” you said.

     (Well, since the two of you were alone, you defaulted to Chorn. But it meant the same thing.)

     She took a step back from the doorway and glanced up and down the length of the train, then behind her, with an air as if she was gathering vital data. (She was.) After a moment, she stepped through the door and slid it shut behind her, the bearings sliding along their tracks in a susurrant manner.

     It appeared as though she was still taking in the scene; she let her gaze linger everywhere she looked, let her calloused brown fingers feather gently over the shiny wood of the table, the plush velvet of the cushioned benches, the heavy brocade of the curtains. Finally, she sat across from you, examining the chess set by picking each piece up in one hand, hefting it thoughtfully, and setting it back in its place.

     “It’s nice to see you,” you said, tapping your fingers on the polished table surface.

     “You see me every day, love,” she said.

     “That doesn’t mean it isn’t nice.” The weight of your day began to press on your shoulders. Suddenly, you felt burdened by the understanding she would ask about what happened. To your knowledge, this would have no consequences for you in the waking world, but something gave you pause anyway. “Would you like to play a game?”

     Sage looked down at the chess board, then back up at you, narrowing her eyes slightly. “You aren’t as tricky as you think you are,” she said.

     “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” This was a lie. The frequency with which you distracted her from various problems with a game of chess made it a terribly weak play, but Sage had a tendency to indulge you anyway.

     “Of course.” With a sigh, but no hesitation, she moved her queen’s pawn out two spaces, then scribbled in the little notepad that sat by her end of the board. “I was worried when you stumbled in covered in blood, you know.”

     Reconsidering your choice of distraction, you moved your king’s pawn out one, the fingernails on your other hand jittering against the table in audible clicks. “It mostly wasn’t mine.”

     “Mostly?” She moved another pawn out beside her first, without even looking at the board, and rested her chin in her other hand.

     You very, very carefully avoided eye contact as you moved another pawn. “I slid on some wet leaves and cut my arm up in the woods.”

     “That wasn’t what I was asking.” Once again, she did not look at the board as she moved. Sage tended to play as if she was memorizing a textbook, which frustrated you greatly, not in the least because it worked for her more often than not.

     “Maybe you should use your words,” you sniped inelegantly.

     Feeling rather hot and stupid after that scintillating display of wit, you busied yourself with noting Bb7 down on your notepad.

     “Maybe you shouldn’t act like a brat,” she chided. After a quick glance down at the board, she moved one of her knights and returned to gazing at you through half-lidded eyes, chin propped on her hand. “Did you hurt someone, love?”

     You moved your knight out to match hers. The back of your head was suddenly violently itchy; you scratched it, noting with some dismay that you’d need to buzz your hair down again soon, as it was starting to get long enough to curl.

     Finally, you said “Teid and I got in some trouble. A security guard walked in while we were going through files, I hit him over the head until he stopped moving.”

     “’Teid?’” Her tone was soft but insistent. As she scribbled down the notation for her bishop’s move, you caught her flicking her eyes between the notepad and your face rapidly.

     “That’s the part you focus on? Really?” Annoyed, you clanked your other knight down exactly parallel to your first, the cool tone of your piece against the board strikingly sharp against the soft murmurs of the train.

     “Well, you weren’t calling him ‘Teid’ before you left.” Her own knight came out, parallel.

     You began to work one of your knights over to the right of the board. “I could have killed a guy, and all you care about is a nickname?”

     “I know you didn’t. You would have led with it if he died.” Clack, scribble.

     “He was bleeding an awful lot.” A click of the knight, a scribble from you. “But yes, he was still breathing when we dragged him into the bathroom.”

     “So, why the nickname?” Clack, scribble.

     You frowned. Drummed your fingers against the table again—moved—noted down Bd6, returned your attention to the conversation. “I don’t know, why do you call me ‘love?’” (The word you were using was not actually “love,” of course.)

     Sage didn’t reach back out to the chess board; instead, she gazed at you until you relented and met her eyes, her face damningly tender. “Because you are the guiding star by which I draw my maps, love. I adore you.”

     Your scalp felt incredibly itchy.

     With that embarrassing display of mushiness completed, Sage looked back down at the board—you did at least feel smug for having drawn her attention away from the game—and moved her queen out one space before returning her attention to you. “That was an interesting comparison,” she said. “I’ve never seen you express even a tenth of that affection for someone other than me.”

     This, to you, felt very silly to dwell on. “Victims of circumstance. It isn’t actual affection. Near-death experiences will do that to anyone.” You moved a pawn.

     Clack, scribble. She took your pawn; that was alright, perfectly within expectations. “What near-death experience? You got walked in on.”

     “Yes, well,” and here you sat back in your bench for a moment, rubbing your eyes with the palms of your hands, “then we had to exit the premises on foot, while a heavily concussed security guard lay around for anyone to find. Which they did. Very quickly.”

     You castled. She was silent as she did the same. You let the silence stretch out for a few moments as you played—you took her bishop, she took yours in turn, you both took a pawn each—and after you sacrificed both of your rooks in a row, it began to wear on you.

     “We were chased by some people with guns—humans and lizards both, I think local cops. It took us ages to shake them off.” The scratch of your pencil was practically deafening as you noted g6.

     Her pace did not break. Another clack, another scribble. “And that’s where you almost died?”

     “Many times. They’re very trigger-happy, you know.”

     “I’m sorry.” Clack, scribble.

     Irritation mounting, you took her knight. When you picked it up, it felt cool and heavy in your hand; idly, you considered what an impractical choice of material marble was for a chess set. “Occupational hazard.”

     She immediately took your knight with her queen, of course. You continued for another few silent moments, trying to encroach into her territory with dogged zeal. Catty delight unfurled in your chest as you moved a pawn to threaten her queen.

     “You’re playing rather shortsightedly, love,” she finally said as she moved her queen back.

     “Got you on the run, haven’t I?” You continued to aggress with the pawn.

     With an air of retribution, Sage moved her queen again, this time to take your bishop. She did not respond to your snipe, just turned her attention back to your face and hummed thoughtfully.

     You began to sweat. You brought your own queen out, palm clammy and slippery against the little stub of a pencil as you wrote Qd4.

     You continued to play in silence. It stretched, ached, yawned like the hole inside of you, sank into the air around you like a thick taffy. Sweat continued to build in dank layers on your skin, shimmering in the sunlight, almost gem-like.

     Sage began to chase your king around the board with her queen. You felt rather like puking.

     “You’re being reckless,” she said, a reiteration on a former theme, as you took her queen with your knight (Suck on that, you thought). Just as you were readying another bitchy comment, everything abruptly went pitch-black.

     The hairs on the back of your neck stood on end. Your breath caught in your throat. The darkness felt like an endless void, like you had been thrust into a chasm and were falling, infinitely, into the cracks between space itself.

     “Tunnel,” Sage said quietly.

     “Oh,” you said.

     The darkness settled into your skin. You listened to the soft creaks and rattles of the train chugging along on its track, controlling your breathing by syncing long, slow exhales with the rhythm of machinery.

     Sage—ever the optimist when it came to you—spoke up again. “I want to know what you and Teiddan talked about.”

     “Why?”

     “Curiosity?” There was a gentle smile in her voice; you could perfectly picture the exact tilt of her lips in that moment. “I do care about you, you know. I can tell you’re avoiding something.”

     Something bubbled up in your throat, a heady, destructive urge that spilled onto your tongue, tasting of bitter leaves and dust. You dug your nails into your palms, lips parted, and as the pain sang through your hands and up your arms, you found yourself saying “We might not get spaceport access.”

     “I knew that coming in.” The nonchalance in her voice broke you.

     You began babbling, vomiting words into the pitch dark at a breakneck pace, rocking back and forth ever-so-slightly and wringing your hands in your hysteria. “But I don’t care. It’s stupid, it’s so fucking stupid, but I don’t. I look at this backwater, run-down, capitalist nightmare of a planet, and I’m… I’m almost sad to leave it.”

     As your mania rose, the tenderness in her voice only grew more profound. “And that’s what you talked about?”

     “Adjacent, more like.” Your nails needed a trim. They caught in your skin as you uncurled your fists; you flicked your wrists out with an audible crack, wincing. “I think he could tell—he said I’ve ‘gone local.’ I told him I’ve never been so offended in my life.”

     “He isn’t wrong.”

     You ignored this. “He’s a complete enigma. He doesn’t treat me like the man who sold his country out.”

     “Well, you aren’t.” Defensive as Sage was of you, this had been a sore spot for several years.

     “But everyone thinks I am.” Frustration rising again, you rubbed your hands over the fuzz of your scalp. “He isn’t an unprecedented super-genius, he hasn’t seen through years of propaganda on his own…”

     “Hasn’t he?” You snorted, but Sage didn’t let up. “The public messaging about you was inconsistent and confusing. I don’t think it takes a genius to figure out there was something else going on.”

     “Maybe.”

     Quiet hung in the air between you again. The gentle sway of the train, combined with Sage’s damned characteristic serenity, slowly began to calm your pulse.

     When she spoke again, it almost didn’t bother you. “Is that all you were avoiding? The fact that you might not want to leave? Love. I’ve known that for years.”

     “What?” For a second, you wondered if you’d heard her correctly. Wildly, you considered the idea that she’d been replaced in the darkness, that someone entirely different was speaking to you from the shadows.

     “I like it here, too,” she said earnestly. “I like being Sage. I like being a woman all the time.”

     You laughed. “Pervert.”

     “Yes, of course.” The smile in her voice turned playful. “It’s true, though, I… I never fit in with my hearth, you know that. Or yours. Besides, I’ve liked being somewhere I can feel the sun on my skin.”

     “Yeah.” You took a heavy, deep breath. “I like the sun, too.”

     All at once, the light swept back through the train car, blazing golden shafts illuminating the board and reflecting off every shining surface, painfully piercing your corneas. You squinted, thrown off-kilter by the sudden rush of sensation.

     Sage’s face was warm and comforting as always, smiling at you with such heartfelt, genuine devotion that you couldn’t even begin to be irritated. You wanted to take her grinning face in your hands and count every single freckle and tell her each one was named after a reason you couldn’t live without her. You refrained, as that would be overkill.

     “Do you want to finish the game?” She nodded toward the board, still sitting unchanged between the two of you.

     You gestured broadly in the air in front of you. “May as well.”

     The next couple of minutes were mostly quiet again, save for the clacking of chess pieces and scribble of pencils on paper, but it was more companionable than the previous silences. You chased her around the board, attempting to put her in check with your single remaining knight, but she was not having it. Your kings danced around each other fruitlessly. Her defense was mulishly strong; she played like a textbook and you were beating your fists against her pages in futile frustration.

     It was obvious to you, even before it happened, that her win was inevitable.

     “King to f6,” she finally said out loud, still with a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Checkmate.”

     “I saw that coming,” you said, unable to allow her the last word, even in camaraderie.

     Fortunately, Sage never minded your bluster. She just hummed happily, and took your hand in hers from across the table, and said “Think ahead next time, alright?”