(Sometimes) Aurelie's Room, (Always) The Tsuqeqachye’ki
I could stay, he almost offered; I could sleep in the corner, with a blanket over me. He didn’t know what fears were in him; he couldn’t find the shape of them. Something would happen in the night, he thought, or she would begin to cry again, and she would be alone. The thought of it was even worse than the thought of watching her cry once more; the thought of not knowing tore at him, somewhere he should not have been to tear.
It was, Aremu thought, horribly selfish, to ask her to be uncomfortable just so that he could soothe his own anxieties. He knew something of Anaxi and Anaxi proprieties; he knew it would make her uncomfortable.
“Good night, Aurelie,” was the only thing he said in the end. He took his sweater and the bowl of cold rice, the one they neither of them had eaten, for it did not smell especially good, anymore. Thinking ahead, he at least left the spoon. One handed, he dumped the rice down the trash chute in the kitchen, and washed the bowl and set it aside. He thought perhaps he was hungry, but he knew how carefully food was rationed aboard such a ship, and he did not want to force Chibugo to make more excuses for him.
There was noise and laughter coming from the cockpit of the ship, light spilling out beneath the door. Aremu didn’t know that he could bear it – especially the Hesseans – and so he didn’t go to find out.
Aremu shrugged on his sweater as he went outside; the chill wind pricked at him, raced over his skin, and he shivered in to it. He climbed up to the roof once more, and tucked himself out of sight, strapped in well enough for emergencies. He lay there, and he watched the stars for a long time. At first he found his constellations, named the shapes of them to himself, tracing them one to another through the bright stars.
And then, in time, he let go of that, too, and he simply looked. He didn’t know when it became sleep, or what sleep was to him; he dreamt of stars, and the things they had whispered to him once, and when he woke they were still, and when he slept they were there again. He thought perhaps he was somewhere between the stars and the ship, between being asleep and awake, and he couldn’t find even a fingerhold on anything more secure.
He woke to the pale light of early morning; he shifted, and rubbed his eyes with his left hand, and sat himself up against the edge of the roof, arm draped over his knees, and watched the faint beginnings of light spill out over the world below. They were still over land, as he had known they must be; it was Anaxas, still, beneath them, as it would be for most of the day. He could see nothing he knew, and he did not strain himself in the looking.
Before long he climbed back down; as he had promised, he turned the handle twice, and stopped for the count of three, and then opened the door, a tiny sliver.
She was asleep in the bed, red hair spread out over the pillow; he couldn’t see her face, but the heap of blankets over her rose and fell, steadily.
Silently, Aremu closed the door once more.
He went back outside, and sat, and watched the early dawn spill out over the world below; still, she slept. He made himself known in the cockpit for a bit, and then he checked on her again, and found her sleeping still. He took kofi in the kitchen with Chibugo and some of the others, and said he’d take breakfast in his room, and brought a bowl of thick barley-flour porridge in a bowl with him, sweetened with ginger, cinnamon, pepper, turmeric and cardamom, with only the faintest pinch of heat.
He turned the handle twice, and waited; he opened the door, then, the bowl balance between his hip and the wall, and slipped inside. He set the bowl down as quietly as he could, covering it, and tucked a spoon between it and the wall. He glanced at her once in the bed, and then turned to go once more, thinking not to disturb her.