Endosymbiosis

19. Scars

It was impossible to look at the night sky without getting lost in it, or in the questions it brought up when its infinity became incomprehensible...

"We've come this far..." I got lost in the darkness above. "I would never have guessed..."

"And we will go even further." Kadi sent me a look, with those green planet eyes orbiting me. "So far that later, when we look at the sky, we won't even be able to see this world where we step today."

"I never thanked..."

"Wait until we're at the core." He opened a carefree smile. "And then you can thank me however you want."

His tone made me think of some ways I would never dare to say.

"Ask me a question, then." I suggested. "The answer will be my way of thanking for what we have achieved so far." He raised an eyebrow. "Better than continuing the journey with a completely unknown person."

Kadi then placed a hand on his chin and thought for a moment, until he found something to ask:

"What's the story about that scar?" And he pointed to my right ankle, which hadn't been attacked by the vorrampes, where a white line danced across the skin. I raised an eyebrow.

"Are you sure that's what you want to know? I have many secrets below the surface..."

"I need to start from somewhere... To then get deep..."

He thought I was worth digging... I swallowed hard, averted my eyes from his and then told the story:

"I once sprained my ankle and had to have a leg cast for a few noxdiems. When I went back to the hospital to get it out, the iatric took a saw and thought the cast was thicker than it really was... So he ended up reaching my leg." I laughed at the surprise on Kadi's face. "I usually tell people that I survived a chainsaw attack."

"And it's not a lie. Who knew your scars would have stories to tell..." I shrugged, smiling. "But there's still so much I don't know..."

He wanted to dig me up more... And I wanted to be discovered.

"What do you want to know?"

"Why do you want to go to the core so much?" The question was already on the tip of his tongue. I opened my mouth to say what I had already said about the Queen, but he continued: "Deep down... What is driving you to it?"

Deep down... I didn't like the darkness that lurked in it when I stopped to pay attention. I sighed and revealed my weakest part to him, the point where he should stab the knife if he ever wanted to:

"At the Oasis, some of the patients were so grumpy that they could call me names just for saying 'good morning'... And it was much worse if I didn't." I heard Kadi laugh as my eyes lost themselves in the distant stars, blinking as if they also heard me. "But others were also sweet..." I still remembered. "I once took care of a weaver... Her family didn't visit much, so she talked to me about her youthful adventures, her mistakes, her dreams... And spent a lot of time weaving gifts for the staff." I opened a soft smile to her smile in my memories. "But one day she got worse... We tried to save her, but there wasn't much else we could do..." I sighed. "One day, she looked me in the eye and whispered: I'm sorry for not having finished your gift in time; I promise I'll deliver it in the next life..." My tears glistened in the night. "And then she was gone..."

Just like all... Some alive. Others not.

When I looked at Kadi, his eyes sparkled like mine, reflecting the lights from the stars above, because he understood what made my voice tremble. His hand reached out and took mine, warming it and caressing the skin like it was art. I felt the shape of his fingers with the tips of mine and traced every line of his fingerprints, every fold, every callus, in an attempt to get to know his hands and everything they had once done... We stayed there for an eternity, in silence below the stars, on that fragile bridge that made us so human... It was as if we were the last two people in the Milky Way, isolated between oceans of stars and waves of solitude, warmed only by that flame at your fingertips that wanted to touch so much more than should.

"It was a promise..." I whispered, drawing my fingers back. "That it didn't matter if she could fulfill it or not, because it was already fulfilled on the desire of that other life that I lived entirely in an instant..." I swallowed, thinking of the face that has long since faded from my memories, even though her words had stayed forever. "It was a gift... A life that didn't have to happen for me to experience it... Where anything was possible, even if it couldn't be here... And, even when she was dying, she thanked me. Just for make her last days a little better..." I remembered the countless others who also thanked me for fighting for them, even though I had lost so many battles. "I need to go to the core of the galaxy... To prevent them from feeling this pain and to make the Empire better so that the next lives in it become like the ones I dream of today..."

I would do anything for that.

"I've met a lot of determined people..." He commented, his eyes wandering the void above. "You have the same intensity as them, able to move minds, mountains, empires... People who look up at the stars like you; and who look at others as if they were stars..." His words were ambrosia to my ears. And for a moment I swore I had been dead all my life, because just now I felt alive. "If you want, you'll have the universe... Because it would be stupid if it didn't want to be yours.

I stared at him without words.

Never had I felt so seen... And the more I fell into his eyes on mine, the more I realized how good he was at making me feel that way.

"Thank you, Arkadi..."

"Arkadi?" He laughed. "Tired of getting my name wrong?"

"I'll stop bothering you with the other one..."

"Just now that I was getting used to it?"

I sent him a look to read him and saw that warmth the universe didn't use to give so easily... A comfort my life didn't use to have.

"So thank you, Kadi."

"You're welcome, Doxy."