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1. Remnants of the Past, and an Orange Pom
Shutia was standing in a corridor held completely in silence.
Featureless metal walls. The pale glow of indicator lights blinking at even intervals. A connecting passage she recognized from somewhere.
She glanced down, and noticed that her line of sight was much lower than usual — almost level with the girl walking ahead of her. The girl's back was just there, close enough to reach. Silver hair, lustrous and softly curled, moving with each step.
And at the end of that passage, beyond the cold hatch that waited ahead — the scene that had split the two of them apart, irrevocably, the one she could not forget no matter how much she wanted to —
"— hh — ah, hah — !"
She jolted upright, and the breath she had been holding burst out of her lungs in a rush of heat.
Ragged breathing filled the dark room at uneven intervals. Shutia raked the golden hair plastered to her forehead out of her face with rough, impatient fingers, and pressed one hand against her heart, which was pounding hard enough to make her dizzy. Cold sweat soaked through her clothes.
That dream again.
Even now, when she closed her eyes, it came back with perfect clarity — the memories of her time with her sister, and the long, relentless years that had followed.
The clock on the console showed a time deep in the middle of the night.
Shutia climbed out of bed in her rumpled clothes and was drawn, as though by a current she had no intention of resisting, out of her room. She already knew where she was going.
She stopped at the door to her sister's bedroom, and in the darkness, her fingers found the cold glow of the electronic lock panel and moved across it. The sequence was one she had performed so many times it had long since become part of her — as natural as breathing, as automatic as a heartbeat. The lock disengaged without resistance. The door slid open without a sound. She slipped inside.
"...Mm."
The moment she crossed the threshold, the room was full of her sister's presence — and Shutia's breathing, which had been ragged and rough, visibly began to slow.
She approached the bed quietly, and looked down.
There was Ledea, asleep. She was wearing a small, neat nightcap, her breathing slow and even, her expression entirely unguarded. Her small arms were wrapped around a stuffed Pom — orange-colored, plush — and she was holding it to her chest as though it were something precious.
At the sight of her — so helpless, so completely at rest — the anxiety that had been filling Shutia's chest dissolved cleanly away and became something else entirely. Something that settled. Something deep.
Shutia reached out, and gently stroked her sister's silver hair. The warmth she felt through her fingertips told her: that was only a dream from the past. It is past.
She stayed just long enough to be sure. Then she withdrew her hand, satisfied, and returned quietly to her own room.
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2. The Narrow Seat of Honor on the Luna Geist
A silver hull cut a sharp line through the stars, racing through open space.
"Sorry, sis. Dragging you along in a ship this hard to ride, because of me..."
The voice belonged to Shutia, sitting at the pilot's controls, her expression apologetic.
The ship they were aboard today was not the Silver Anchor — not their familiar old work vessel. It was the Luna Geist: Shutia's former ship, the one she had once operated alone, for missions undertaken alone.
The Luna Geist had originally been designed and run as a single-operator combat specialist. It did have auxiliary seating, technically — provision for a second occupant had been included as an afterthought — but the habitability it offered bore no comparison whatsoever to the Silver Anchor. The interior was exposed armor plate. Utilitarian was a generous description.
In their battle against Vizarde, the ship had been destroyed — torn to pieces. At the time it had seemed beyond repair. But through Shutia's persistence and skill, the work was finally done. Many of the high-performance custom components that had once been built into it were now gone, replaced by generic parts sourced through whatever channels were available. Against its former self at full capability, the performance drop was significant. And yet — even diminished, it was still a combat specialist. In pure fighting power and in maneuverability, it outclassed the old work vessel by a considerable margin. And in appearance, at least, it had taken back everything it once was — the same sharp lines, the same silver hull, the same quality that had made it beautiful and quietly dangerous.
In the narrow copilot's seat, silver hair trailing, Ledea was checking figures on her terminal.
"There is nothing to apologize for. The Silver Anchor's rear energy line turned out to need maintenance — having this ship available when a priority Guild commission came in was genuinely helpful."
She glanced up at Shutia while pressing keys at her customary unhurried pace.
"Besides — I had been wanting to ride in the ship you pilot. Just once."
The arrangement today was unusual: Shutia held the main controls, and Ledea was serving in a navigation and data support role. For Ledea, it had been a simple thing to say — a natural combination of mild curiosity and practical logic, nothing more.
For Shutia, it was something else.
"Wuh — uwaaahhhh! Sis said — sis said she wanted to ride in my ship — ! I'm so happy, I'm so haaaappy, I'm glad to be alive — !"
The next moment, Shutia burst into tears. Large ones. She was still holding the controls. Her face crumpled entirely — gratitude and joy and something overwhelming all at once — and whatever internal limit she had been relying on simply stopped working.
"Oh, honestly — ! You may be as happy as you like, but we are currently traveling at considerable speed. Please look forward. It is not safe."
"hic — ugh, I know, I'm looking, I'm looking, sis — ! But listen, in this little space, your scent is everywhere, and I'm the one piloting the ship, and you're right here — do you think there is anything in this galaxy that could make me happier than this?! There isn't! There really isn't!"
"Whatever you like. What I need right now is for you to stabilize the main thruster output. At this rate I am being thrown around in the copilot's seat every time you accelerate."
"Yes ma'am — ! Initiating premium smooth-ride mode optimized for sis's comfort — !"
Shutia dragged her sleeve across her face to deal with the tears, then attacked the console with an energy that bordered on fervent. Ledea exhaled at length — the exhale of someone who had made peace, long ago, with the fact that her sister was like this — and yet the look in her eyes, watching those deft hands move across the unfamiliar controls, held something that was not entirely impatience.
The ship was cramped. In every practical sense, it was cramped.
But the Luna Geist, piloted by Shutia — packed to its narrow limits with the presence of the person she loved — crossed the sea of stars toward the next destination with something that looked very much like lightness.