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1. A Phosphorescent Corridor, or: Fingers That Won't Move
The corridor stretched ahead without end.
Metal floor, cold underfoot. Air held tight and still. Ledea Mace could not remember how she had come to be standing here — could almost remember, in the way of something that clings to the deepest part of a person without ever fully surfacing. A sense of having been here before, overwhelming and entirely without detail.
Her own footsteps were the only sound. She walked. Time passed without measure.
Then — light.
At the far end of the dark, a light appeared. Dense and complete, enclosing the space around it — the kind of light that could swallow a person whole. White particles, drifting like matter itself had become luminous.
Ledea knew this light.
She had seen it before. In a battlefield, in an asteroid field so dense the air itself seemed to press in — debris closing fast, no time to evade — and then this light, and then nothing where the debris had been. Not wreckage. Not scatter. Nothing.
(I know this. I have always known this.)
She moved toward it without deciding to. Her fingertips reached the boundary of the light, nearly touching—
Something pulled her back.
A hand, from behind, strong and immediate, closing around her wrist.
"—!"
She opened her eyes.
The ceiling of her room on the Silver Anchor. Silver hair damp against her skin. And tangled in it, catching the morning light — gold.
She looked down.
Shutia was on the floor beside the bed, upper body collapsed against the mattress, both hands wrapped around Ledea's right arm with the care of someone holding something irreplaceable. Eyes closed. Breathing slow and even.
(She's broken through the lock again.)
The usual morning. The usual intrusion. The usual, exhausting, absolute certainty of her sister's presence.
The sensation of being pulled — the hand around her wrist in the dream — matched, exactly, the warmth of the hands holding her right arm now.
Ledea exhaled.
"Shutia. Let go. It's morning."
She tried to pull her arm free. Shutia's grip did not move. The fingers held with a strength that had nothing conscious in it — pure refusal, or pure need.
Ledea reached over with her free hand and pinched her sister's cheek.
"...mm... sis... that's not... don't go that way..."
"What way. Wake up. You are trespassing."
"Mwah—?! — oh! Sis! Good morning!"
Shutia woke, pressed one hand to the pinched cheek, and immediately turned the full brightness of her smile on Ledea.
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2. The Morning Routine, or: An Unexpected Silence
They moved to the living area. The usual rhythm: Ledea at the main monitor, pulling up the guild database to check the day's available jobs; Shutia behind her, running a brush through Ledea's silver hair with visible contentment.
"Hehe. So smooth today too. The most beautiful hair in the universe."
"You don't need to say that. ...Hm. Not much worth taking today. Outer hull inspection or waste collection in the lower district — that's about it."
Ledea scrolled through the listings with a mild frown. A quiet day was fine. A quiet day that didn't pay was less fine.
Then — a sound.
Low. Flat. Not a notification she recognized. Not her terminal.
The alert was coming from the personal device on Shutia's hip.
"That's unusual. You don't get many direct messages."
Ledea turned slightly, a note of teasing in her voice.
"Is it Sati? Or — have you finally gone ahead and registered Kanoa as a little sister without telling me?"
"I haven't done that! My only little sister — spiritually — is sis, I have said this every day for the past week—"
Shutia grabbed the device from its holder, still talking.
Her messages arrived rarely. Her world was narrow by choice — positioned always at Ledea's side, operating as her support. Direct contact from outside sources happened perhaps a handful of times a year.
She looked at the screen.
Her fingers went still.
Sender: Unknown
Message: It's a job, Mail Noa.
That was all. Eleven words, or seven, depending on how you counted the name.
Shutia stood without moving. Without speaking. The breath in her chest had stopped somewhere in the middle.
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3. A Crack in the Surface, or: Toward an Abandoned Place
"...Shutia?"
The brushing had stopped. The constant low-level noise of her sister's presence had stopped. Ledea turned her chair around.
"What's wrong? You look serious."
Shutia's shoulder moved — just barely. And then, in the next moment, the familiar smile was back in place.
"Nothing, sis! You know how it is — spam. 'Fuel cells at half price, limited time only' — one of those. Nothing."
She shoved the terminal into her pocket and returned the brush to Ledea's hair.
But the pressure was wrong. The brush caught against Ledea's scalp, harder than it should have.
(Shutia.)
Ledea's eyes narrowed slightly. She said nothing.
A short silence.
Then Shutia set the brush down and spoke, casually, to the side.
"Hey, sis. I actually have a bit of personal shopping to do today — would it be okay if I headed out on my own for a bit?"
Alone. Without Ledea. On a day with no jobs, when there was no reason to separate.
"Shopping? I'll come with you. We have the time."
"No, it's fine! It's really nothing — I can handle it on my own. Stay here and wait for me, okay?"
She placed both hands on Ledea's shoulders, gently, and guided her back into the chair. Blocking. Keeping her in place.
This had never happened before.
Ledea looked at her for a moment. Then she let it go.
"...I am not a child who needs to be left at home."
"I know. I'll be back soon."
One more smile. Then Shutia turned, walked quickly toward the dock hatch, and was gone.
The living area settled into quiet.
Ledea looked at her right hand.
The sensation from the dream — fingers closing around her wrist, pulling her back.
Shutia's unsteady hands with the brush. The smile assembled too quickly.
Something was going to happen.
She was certain of it.