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"If life transcends death
Then I will seek for you there
If not, then there too”
― James S.A. Corey, Caliban’s War
Nessus had transformed in both subtle and profound ways, more than anyone had truly realized at first. It wasn’t the towering jungles or the endless horizons that had shifted, it was something deeper, quieter. Something rippling through the plants, through the animals and the Vex. The radiolaria, once confined to the rivers, had woven itself into the very soul of the planet, breathing a new kind of life into it.
The Echo of Command sure had left its mark, and Maya’s hand alongside it.
Saint let out a little hum as he watched a frog with iridescent skin leap from one slick leaf to another. The river itself was a mesmerizing sight, a flow of radiant, almost ethereal liquid that shimmered and shifted, filled with the microscopic radiolaria that gave the water its otherworldly glow.
Just as he leaned forward, a voice broke through the quiet.
This has changed nothing. It has only delayed my imperative.
“Maya!?”
Saint exclaimed, pulled out of his reverie.
I told you, Saint. I told all of you. I will continue. This is what I have been brought back to do. This is my calling, my purpose. I cannot, and will not rest until it is fulfilled, and we have the peace we deserve.
Saint looked everywhere around him, not seeing the Conductor, until he realised the voice was coming from the radiolaria itself, almost humming to him. He wondered if anyone in the vicinity would have picked it up too, or if it was a more intimate conversation, running through his system alongside the radiolarian fluid in his veins.
This has changed nothing.
“Ah, but it has. Now you are finally calling me Saint .”
He said with humour, knowing she could hardly do him any harm in her current, liquid state.
An acknowledgement, perhaps. You have to understand, I do not see you as an enemy. Just an obstacle, if you refuse to let me do what needs to be done.
“You are not only punishing yourself, but also all the other Mayas you are stealing the Chioma from.”
Those Mayas understand. This is a sacrifice in the name of progress, and salvation.
Saint shook his head and stood up, approaching the river, leaving his shotgun behind, near the rock he had been sitting on.
“No. You sacrifice too much.”
The exo’s voice was firm, almost condemning, but there was a softness to it, an opening, like fresh wind through a dense forest. There was silence, and for a moment, the world seemed to hold its breath. Even the river, that shimmering lifeblood of Nessus, seemed to slow its eternal pulse, as if waiting for her answer.
I understand sacrifice.
I have sacrificed everything. I will not allow these deaths to mean nothing.
The river rippled again, in quiet defiance, the radiolaria swirling more erratically, an undercurrent of impatience building beneath the surface.
I did not choose this, but I was brought back for a reason.
Saint shook his head slowly.
"But you are choosing." He said, his voice steady. "Every day. Every hour. You are choosing to destroy what little you have left. I told you before, you do not have to do this. You do not have to be the ghost of what you have lost."
As he neared the edge of the cliff, he looked into the white fluid, examining the swirling currents more closely, nearly mesmerized by the delicate dance of the bioluminescent forms within it. First, he discerned a small pattern, which then moved, rose, and slowly, shaped into yet another Conductor, perfect copy of the one he and Ikora had previously destroyed.
Saint stood there for a moment, drawn by the peculiarly religious picture unfolding in front of him, but when Maya opened her eyes, he backed up, looking for his shotgun.
“No need.” Maya said, her voice coming directly from her new form, and no longer from Saint’s mind. “I will not harm you, or try to compel you in any way. If you agree not to strike either, you have my word.”
Saint looked at her for a moment, then at his weapon. Feeling her eyes on him, he walked back to the edge, crossing his arms, and asked:
“Why did you come to me?”
Maya seemed hesitant for a moment.
“I believe you could... Understand.”
“I do.” Saint replied with confidence. “But I also understand when I need to stop. Believe me, it has not always been the case. I had my fair share of obsessions, and so did Osiris.”
Maya sighed, letting her newly formed hand brush against the leaves of a nearby bush.
“When I gained consciousness, I only thought a brief moment had passed. A few weeks at most. My first thought was of Chioma. She has been my only thought ever since. I know hundreds of years passed, but I was offered this second chance. And despite your vanguard’s attempts, I will not give it up. I want my wife back. I want my Chioma back, like it used to be. Our perfect Golden Age.”
“But you found her. You found her, and you ... discarded her!”
“Because she wasn’t my Chioma! Not anymore!”
“And she said you were only the shadow of the woman she once loved. Doesn’t this make you both wrong then?”
Maya started pacing again, radiolaria splashing around her, tiny droplets burning holes in the grass it landed on.
“She was not my Chioma.”
“This Chioma was lost, hopeless, but she was your Chioma. You had left her in the dark for many, many years.”
“ My Chioma would never –”
“All these years ago, on Venus. Your relationship started with an argument. Don’t you think it is telling? You need Chioma to challenge you. You need it like air to breathe. This is why it is healthy, Maya.”
The Conductor turned her back to him, which Saint took as a sign that she was taking his words in, dissecting them. Something was changing. This wasn’t the Maya he had encountered with the Guardian and Osiris. This Maya listened. This was the Maya he was hopping had it in her to see the errors of her way, and let go. He continued:
“You’re trying to rebuild something that only exists in your mind. You think that resurrecting an era you have forgotten most things about will fix what is broken? You’re holding on to a lie, an illusion. This will never bring you the peace you keep telling me about.”
The iridescent glow of the river pulsed like the steady rhythm of a heartbeat around Maya’s thighs. Saint could see the tension in the way she moved, the subtle tightness in her posture, the way she still clung to her mantle as if it was the last thread holding her together.
She paused in her pacing, her hand hovering just above the water’s surface, where the radiolaria glimmered through the current.
"You speak of challenges, Saint." Maya said, her voice soft but heavy with unwavering resolve. "But what do you know about losing someone so completely? What do you know of loving someone so entirely that their absence feels like a hollowed-out part of your own soul?"
Saint took a long breath, his arms still crossed as he observed her. He wondered how much she truly knew about him, about Osiris, or if this was only a test. He wondered if Maya was trying to paint herself as an antagonist, or a martyr.
"I know loss." He said quietly. Maya had read his mind before, and he knew that the Vex spoke of him. Why she pretended not to remember could have been the fruit of her cold calculations, but at the same time, a given chance to hear it from his own mouth. "I know it well enough. I lost people I loved, and I still carry that with me, every day. But I also know that trying to force the past into the present, trying to make it something it was never meant to be..." He shook his head. "It is a cage. One you are building for yourself."
Maya’s body shuddered, the swirling radiolaria around her rippling like a disturbance in the water. She took a step back, her glowing eyes narrowing as she met his gaze.
"You think I don’t know that? You think I don’t understand what it means to carry this grief, to know that no matter what I do, it will never truly bring her back ?"
Her voice cracked slightly on the last word, a fissure in her resolve that Saint didn’t miss, and the very first admission of her fallibility. A crack in her, finally, but light pouring through it too.
"You are not just carrying grief, Maya. You are suffocating yourself with it. You let it become your only reason to keep going. You’ve buried yourself so deep in the past that you cannot even see what is right in front of you. And what in front of you, Maya, is a future. A chance to make things right. Not just for Chioma, but for yourself."
“Ah, an idealist!”
Her tone was meant to be mocking, but all Saint could hear was an attempt to disguise her inner, awakening turmoil.
“Maybe I am. But you have been holding on to a ghost. A version of Chioma that does not exist anymore. And you have been using her to justify everything you have done since. All the pain, all the suffering… and now this." He gestured to the world around them, to the strange, flickering radiolaria, to the planet that felt both alive and unnervingly alien.
“Have you ever lost a child?”
She abruptly asked.
“No, I cannot say that I did...”
“Then don’t you dare lecture me on grief!” Maya suddenly burst, turning around and waving her lone arm towards the river. “You, Osiris, Ikora, you all think you understand my grief. You do not. We lost everything. And when I thought we couldn’t lose any more than we had, I lost her too. You have no idea what it is like, grieving alone. Always. Alone.”
Saint took a step closer . Raw feelings, finally breaking free from Maya’s emotional apathy, and for a moment, he saw a glimpse of the shattered woman hidden inside that inflexible shell of a body.
“Grief is unfair. Unforgiving. Brutal. Grief never goes away.” Saint placed a hand on his chest. “I carry my grief everywhere I go. It is part of me now. With my strengths and weaknesses.”
“But you are not alone.”
“I have been. I know what grieving alone is like. But it does not always have to stay this way. It is okay to need help.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“You don’t think you do, I know. I felt the same, when Osiris came for me. But trust me, I know what it is like, tearing through death and time, being brought back into a world that has evolved centuries past you. The world changes, when you’re gone. It grieves you, like your beloved Chioma had to, on Neptune. She was alone too, you know.”
Maya stood still, her eyes distant, unfocused, as she suddenly seemed to realise something she did not even take into consideration. Doubt was now poisoning her misguided conviction. For the first time, Saint saw how fractured she truly was, not just the image of a scientist gone mad, consumed by her terrible pursuit, but the quiet desperation of a broken woman haunted by a love that had slipped through her fingers while her hands were bound and her eyes blindfolded.
“I never wanted to her be alone.” She murmured, almost to herself. “I thought I could only peek into the Veil for a moment. I never imagined...”
Her voice broke, and she clenched her fist, the glowing radiolaria sparkling around her, responding to her helplessness like thousands of angry needles.
Saint exhaled slowly, a sense of quiet regret settling in his chest. He didn’t want to keep pushing her, especially not when he felt like she was so close to finally opening up, and that one wrong move, or word, would result in her shutting off completely. He didn’t want to be the one who crushed whatever fragile hope she had left, but he knew what she was doing to herself. What she was doing to her memory of Chioma. He had been there once, had seen the sharp, desperate edge of a grief so consuming that it left no room for reason.
“You have to let her go, Maya.” Saint said softly, his voice a blend of sorrow and resolve. “Let the Chioma of the past go. You are not just holding on to the past... you are holding on to the pain, to the idea of her. Even if you manage to bring her back again somehow, you cannot undo what time did to her. Not the way you want. No one can.”
“ My Chioma is still out there.”
Maya whispered once again, like a mantra, as if saying it out loud was a talisman guarding her from the harrowing consequences of the deeds she had long refused to face.
“When you spoke to me the first time, you called me an error. You said that I did not belong. You opened old wounds, had me question my legitimacy. But I know this now, and I have no doubts. No timeline will ever matter, or change anything. I am Saint-14. There is only Saint-14.”
“What are you saying?”
“ You need to grieve the Chioma you believe is yours. Only then you will be able to accept Chioma .”
Maya’s eyes flickered with something close to apprehension, but she didn’t step back. Her posture remained rigid, like she was already bracing herself for whatever came next. Saint waited, patient, watching her as the weight of his words settled into the space between them.
“I want to show you something.” He said. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I know it helped me.”
He stood still for a moment, allowing Maya's unspoken hesitation to hang in the air between them. She was guarding herself, every inch of her posture braced against the possibility of confronting something she wasn't ready to face. Then he saw it again. The light through the crack. That’s when he knew he had to give her the smallest of pushes.
“It helped us.”
And then, finally, Maya nodded in agreement.
Nessus was the perfect place to open a door. Saint extended his hand, and the air before them shimmered, warping like liquid glass. The Corridor of Time stretched open, a vast, glowing passageway that pulsed with ethereal light. Judging by Maya’s reaction, Saint realized she had never seen this place before. This corridor had no walls, but it still felt like walking through a tunnel made of shifting, luminous threads, interwoven with fragmented glimpses of futures and pasts, snapshots of worlds, timelines, and choices. It felt like standing at the threshold of everything that ever was, could, and couldn’t be at the same time.
Maya’s gaze searched nervously, trying to find anything resembling an edge, anything she could use as an anchor and follow. She hesitated, her steps tentative at first, as if uncertain of the ground beneath her feet.
“This feels... familiar.”
The Conductor murmured, her eyes distant, as if the path itself was awakening something inside her.
“It usually does, yes. Nobody knows why.”
Saint was walking ahead, his broad shoulders cutting a confident figure against the swirling white void, but he kept his steps slow. He knew the Corridor was not just a passage; it was a mirror for those who walked it, pulling reflections of their innermost truths into the light. Maya's truths were sharp, splintered things that could cut with ease. He did not want to press too hard, too quickly.
“She gave up on me because she thought I was beyond reason...”
Maya acknowledged quietly, as if not to wake the memories too quickly. Saint nodded, acknowledging the truth in her words without judgment.
“Then find the part of you that can still reach her.”
Maya looked down at her hand, the bright glow of the Corridor catching on the lines of her palm.
“And what if I can’t?”
Saint met her gaze and smiled.
“Then we walk until you can.”
When they stepped through the final veil of shimmering light, if felt as if the world around solidified.
The Corridor of Time faded behind them, its twisting threads dissolving into the warm light of Neomuna.
A cliff, and the modern skyline spread out before them, sleek spires and shimmering arcs of light. It was a place of solitude and resilience, a reflection of the dreams that Maya and Chioma had once nurtured together.
He watched as she moved forward. Nestled by the side of the cliff were two graves, simple markers of stone, polished smooth by time.
“Osiris sent the coordinates.” Saint informed her. “He said it is called Maya’s Retreat.”
Maya’s head turned slowly toward him, her eyes wide with disbelief.
“They... named it after me?”
Saint smiled.
“Ha! It seems your legacy is not just one of mistakes.”
“I never said –“
The Conducto’s gaze returned to the graves and let her sentence die, too absorbed to follow through, her expression unreadable. She stepped forward slowly, her movements hesitant, as if afraid the moment might shatter. She knelt before the markers, her breath hitching as she traced the faded names carved into the surface.
Chioma Esi
Maya Sundaresh
Both dates long past. Both markers etched with a single inscription beneath their name, barely readable after decades of natural decay, but the meaning was as strong as the first day it was engraved.
Wife – Mother – Pathfinder
Reading it hurt. A lot more than Maya cared to admit. She stood up, her gaze lost in the golden horizon beyond the cliff. It was beautiful, timidly buzzing with life despite the occasional Shadow Legion forces or hostile Vex, and she wondered if this was the kind of peace Chioma had wanted for them.
A thought occurred, and it took several minutes for Maya to voice it.
“Would it be possible to bring her back again... Just once more...?”
Her question took Saint by surprise.
“I know Ikora and Osiris gathered enough data so track her source, when we tried to locate her. Bringing her back a second time... I am not sure. I need to ask Osiris.”
“Saint asked me to take you there. I’m doing this for him, not for you.”
Radiolaria was running quite freely on Neomuna, offering many different places to experiment with, but Osiris had set his heart on a small Ishtar lab, hoping both women would feel more at ease on familiar territory.
“Do not feel like this is an obligation. I can manage on my own just fine.”
“I am merely here to assist and offer my knowledge.” Osiris said, his eyes on Maya’s mantle. “The choice is yours. Only you can choose to walk this path again.”
Do not go too hard on her, I know how much of a mirror she is to you, Osiris. But I believe she is ready to listen, this time. If not for you, do it for me.
Maya remained silent for a while, running her hand through the thick Vex fluid.
“The radiolaria here feels different.”
Osiris let his hand hover near hers without touching the white fluid. He’d learnt long ago that the painful sting wasn’t worth the curiosity.
“How so?”
Maya nodded in silence, and Osiris wondered if she was trying to decipher the newfound data stream, or simply overwhelmed by her long-lost wife’s presence.
“I can feel ... traces of her. Of us.”
Osiris studied Maya with a guarded expression as he observed her movements. Her hand remained steady, fingers trailing through the radiolarian fluid, like she was combing it.
“Traces, yes.” Osiris said at last. “The Vex are masters of preservation. They do not forget, but they do not remember either, at least not the way we do. Whatever you think you’re feeling, you must understand it’s only fragments. Shadows of what was.”
Maya’s jaw twitched slightly, her gaze remaining fixed on the fluid.
“You think I don’t know that?”
Osiris tilted his head, there was no real venom to her words, but using caution was probably wise. There were still unpleasant truths he needed to make sure the Conductor was ready to acknowledge.
“I think you’ve let those shadows define you. You’ve built your life around them, and now, you’re here, grasping for a forgotten past because you can no longer imagine a future.” He sighed. “I know what it means to lose everything. I have walked that path, and I have almost lost myself through it.”
Maya’s jaw clenched slightly.
“You had Saint to pull you back. You had someone who grounded you. I didn’t have this. I lost her. I lost her because I couldn’t find the right words to make her understand.”
“You lost her before this. You lost her because you let your grief blind you. You buried yourself in your work, in your obsession, because it was easier than facing the pain. And now, centuries later, you stand here, still running from it.”
Maya’s hand clenched at her side, her breath shallow. The tension between them crackled like static, and for a moment, neither spoke.
“I am not saying this to hurt you.” Osiris eventually admitted with a calmer voice. “But bringing her back, even for a moment, will not absolve you. There is always the possibility she might not forgive you.”
Maya swallowed hard, but her voice came out calm and resolute.
“Then at least I’ll know. At least I will have said what I needed to say.”
“I see.” Osiris said, a part of him admiring her unyielding resolve. “I’ll have Saint prepare the transmat for Chioma’s body.”
Another moment of quiet settled.
“Do you think it’s too late?”
Maya asked after a while, and for the first time, he heard doubt in her voice. The Conductor was doubting, and asking him what he was making of it. Somehow, that touched him deeply. Perhaps Saint was right, after all.
“I wouldn’t say it is too late. You brought her back once. You can bring her back again.” He extended his hand, gesturing toward the fluid. “The traces you feel are real. We will follow them, and I will guide you, but I cannot promise anything. The rest is up to you, and her.”
Maya hesitated, then reached out, her fingers brushing against the radiolaria. The fluid rippled under her touch, sending faint, luminous patterns through her fingertips, almost grasping impatiently for her attention.
“There is one thing I need to do first.”
Osiris hesitated as he understood her intentions, his instinct to intervene clashing with his understanding of her resolve. He lowered his arms, choosing instead to observe.
"This is your decision."
Maya gave a small nod, her expression softening for a moment. Without another word, she stepped into the fluid. The radiolaria lapped at her ankles first, the contact almost gentle, but as she walked deeper, it began to ripple, reacting to her presence. When it reached her waist, Maya tilted her head back, letting out a soft, almost reverent sigh. The Conductor’s form began to dissolve, its sharp, angular lines melting into the fluid.
Osiris watched, his golden eyes narrowing as Maya’s silhouette blurred, becoming indistinct within the glowing pool. For a moment, there was only the sound of radiolaria shifting and the faint pulse of the Echo, like a heartbeat.
Then, slowly, her form began to reemerge.
Gone were the harsh, mechanical edges of the Conductor. Instead, Maya’s body took on a softer, more organic shape, her frame slender yet solid, almost human in its proportions. Patches of shimmering radiolaria clinging to her skin like intricate iridescent tattoos, and those beautiful grey eyes that would break anyone’s heart.
Around her neck, the Echo had reshaped itself into an elegant layered necklace, a simplified version of the large floating ruff the Conductor previously wore around her neck.
Osiris studied her, almost captivated. She looked remarkably similar to the Maya Sundaresh he had seen in the Ishtar archives, the woman from the Golden Age, before the Collapse, before the grief, before the obsession. It wasn’t just her physical form, but the way she carried herself now, the way her gaze met his with a quiet but undeniable resolve.
Maya stepped forward, the last of the radiolaria slipping from her skin like melted silver. She stretched for a moment, familiarizing herself with her new body. When she finally spoke, her voice was calm and steady despite a hint of apprehension.
“I’m ready.”
Osiris tilted his head slightly.
“You’ve remade yourself.” He said, his tone neutral but with a faint note of approval. “This form... it’s not just a physical change, is it? You’ve chosen this to reflect who you want to be.”
Maya nodded.
“I can’t undo the past. I can’t erase what I’ve done, what I’ve lost. But I can choose to mourn it differently.” She glanced down at her hands, flexing her fingers, marvelling at the skin. “I don’t want to waste this.”
She met his gaze briefly, a flicker of gratitude passing over her features. Then, without another word, she stepped into the radiolaria.
The fluid welcomed her, clinging to her skin, the silver patches on her body glowing brighter as they synchronized with the pool’s energy. The sight was almost otherworldly, Maya immersed in the essence of the Vex, yet commanding it, shaping it not as the Conductor, but as something new, and for a better purpose.
Osiris gently lowered Chioma’s body into the pool beside Maya. The radiolaria began to react again, welcoming the body. Maya smiled and placed her hands on either side of the exo’s head, her expression one of profound focus.
The radiolaria grew brighter as she guided it into Chioma’s lifeless form, channelling the data inside, but also her emotions, her love, her regrets, her hopes. It was as if she was offering all of herself to this moment, an act of creation born from her deepest and truest pain.
And then, Chioma moved.
A sharp, rasping sound cut through the air as the exo’s body jerked and coughed, radiolaria spilling from her lips. Osiris stepped forward instinctively, but Maya raised a hand to stop him.
“I understand, I’ll give you two some privacy.”
He said, slowly making his way back to the lab entrance, giving them one last look before closing the door behind him.
“Chioma?”
Maya asked, trying not to let emotions overwhelm her voice as the Exo’s eyes flickered to life. There was confusion in her gaze. Fear, mingled with recognition.
“Maya? What happened? I thought you - ” Chioma’s voice was hoarse, fragmented, her words cutting off as her hand pressed against her chest. Maya knelt beside her.
“It’s... it’s a long story. A painful one too.” She said softly. “I will explain the best I can, I promise.”
Chioma remained silent for a moment, her gaze shifting from Maya to the pool, as if trying to piece together her fragmented memories. She studied her wife for a while, her expression unreadable.
“You look... different. Almost like you used to.”
“Last time we met, I don’t think I was really myself...”
Maya admitted quietly.
“I remember... fragments. Something about... you. But it feels... wrong.”
Maya swallowed hard. She understood the fear in Chioma’s eyes, the hesitation in her voice. Her eyes softened after a while, but her body remained tense, as if caught between wanting to move closer and needing to keep her distance.
“I know.”
“I don’t... remember much...” Chioma admitted, her hand brushing her metallic chest absentmindedly. “Just flashes. And those flashes make me feel... uneasy. Scared.”
Maya nodded slowly, her throat tightening. She had anticipated this, had known Chioma might carry the faint echoes of their last, terrible encounter.
“It’s okay, I won’t push you. Take all the time you need.”
She said softly, her hands resting in her lap. Chioma didn’t respond immediately. Instead, she shifted her weight, the motion awkward but deliberate, as if testing the strength of her new form.
“This... body . It’s strange. It feels... mine, but foreign too. Like waking up and wondering if you interrupted a dream, or a nightmare.”
Maya looked away, her fingers curling into fists in her lap.
“I’m sorry.” She said, the words struggling to find a way through her lips. “For everything. For what I did to you before. For trying to... force fate. I don’t want to make that mistake again. Not with you.”
A long moment of quiet passed again.
“You look like you’ve been through hell.”
Chioma said at last, her tone much softer than Maya was anticipating.
“I have.” Maya said simply. She hesitated, then added. “But somehow, I think it was the only way I could finally see what I had become. And what I had lost.”
“And now?”
“Now I want to focus on what matters the most.”
“Which is?”
Maya hesitated, not because she didn’t know the answer, but because voicing it felt like lowering the last shield of resistance she had left. It was taking a leap of faith.
“You. Us . And not just what we were... but what we could still be.” She paused for a moment, a timid smile stretching her lips. “Recently, someone told me that I need to grieve the... projected version of you I believed to be mine.”
Chioma nodded and Maya let the moment linger, understanding that her wife still needed space to process everything. She took a deep breath, allowing her thoughts to wander, reflecting on the truth she’d slowly come to accept.
She had spent centuries consumed by grief, trying to bend reality to her will, to the point of outsmarting death itself. She had thought that control would bring her peace. But grief, she now understood, wasn’t something that would let itself be moved, and commanded.
Besides her, her wife was still flexing her hands, examining the intricacies of her new body.
“Back then...” Chioma whispered suddenly as a memory crossed her mind. “Whatever place that was... It wasn’t this version of you. It was someone else, someone cold, sharp, heartless. She had your voice and... I was afraid of her. I was afraid of you .”
Her voice broke slightly as she spoke, adding weight to her sentence, making Maya wince.
“You had every right to be. I... hurt you, I hurt more than one you , in ways I still don’t know if I can ever fully make up for. I don’t expect you to forgive me right away, I don’t expect you to forgive me at all. But I’m ready to earn your trust again, if you’ll let me.”
Chioma tilted her head slightly, her hands resting on her lap. For a long moment, she didn’t speak, taking in Maya’s offering of truth.
“I remember pieces. The fear, yes, but also the love. The version of you I mourned so long ago. You look... closer to her now. Like the Maya I fell in love with. There’s a warmth in you now that I didn’t think I’d see again. It’s... disarming.”
Maya offered her a timid smile.
“Disarming is better than terrifying, I suppose.”
Chioma chuckled faintly at that.
“I think... I need time, Maya. This isn’t something I can just accept overnight.”
“Of course.”
Maya replied quickly, eyes darting down, hands fiddling with the lapel of her short pallu.
“But I know you’re trying. I know. And I am not going anywhere.”
The words struck something deep within Maya, and for a brief moment, she tried to come up with an elaborate answer, maybe even something poetic, but all she could manage were two words and a hopeful smile.
“Thank you.”
Chioma shifted closer, her fingers brushing against Maya’s. It was a tentative touch, but one that carried a promise. Slowly, Chioma leaned in, resting her head briefly against Maya’s shoulder.
“I don’t know where this will lead.” Chioma admitted. “But I do want this. For both of us.”
Maya exhaled deeply, a sense of relief washing over her. Chioma’s expression softened as she cupped Maya’s cheek. For a moment, she seemed to hesitate, her eyes tracing every line, every wrinkle time had wrought. There was something cautious in her expression, but also tender, as though she was not only seeing the Maya who stood before her, but all the versions of her. The brilliant scientist, the grieving mother, the heartless Conductor, and the woman who had finally found her way back.
Chioma’s touch was warm and grounding, and Maya leaned into it without thinking, relaxing slowly as her wife’s thumb brushed softly along her skin.
“You’ve always been so stubborn.” Chioma murmured, a faint smile tugging at her lips. “You never know when to give up, do you?”
Maya couldn’t help a quiet laugh.
“Not when it comes to you, even when I am wrong.” She admitted. “Never when it comes to you.”
The exo leaned in, her lips hovering close, her breath warm against Maya’s skin.
“A Sūryodāya always rises.”
Chioma whispered. To hear it now, after everything, was like a spark igniting within Maya. Her heart skipped a beat, her throat tightened with a surge of emotion she could barely control. The nickname Chioma had once whispered with love and reverence, now tethering them between a world that had long since crumbled and a future that could be as bright as sunshine if they welcomed it.
Maya leaned closer and their foreheads touched, Chioma’s lips curved into a faint smile.
“I just need time.” She said with no hesitation in her voice. “Time to let go of what was, time to trust what is. But I know that we can make this work. We always have, even when the universe was either falling apart, or against us.”
Maya nodded her acknowledgement against her wife’s forehead, the subtle motion carrying more sincerity than a thousand apologies ever could.
And in that moment, safely nestled into the small pool of radiolaria, nothing else mattered. There was no past, no future, only this moment holding together by the quiet conviction that a love like theirs, no matter how broken, could always rise to see another day.
Epilogue
Maya’s Retreat was quiet.
The two women sat on the edge of the cliff, shoulder to shoulder, their legs dangling over the precipice.
Above, the stars shimmering faintly against the glow of Neomuna’s skyline, and beneath their feet, the city’s distant hum, almost imperceptible at this height.
Behind them, the gravestones stood solemnly, weathered by decades of wind, rain, and sunlight. The markers bore no malice however, only a quiet testament to the lives they had once lived, and the open chapter they had since begun.
Chioma shifted slightly, her eyes drawn to the horizon where the golden glow of Neomuna’s dome met the inky expanse of infinite space.
“It’s been so long since we just sat like this.”
The exo said, her voice soft, carrying a note of wistful nostalgia.
“Too long.”
Her wife admitted with a bittersweet smile, and Chioma turned her head to look at her, studying the face she’d loved for so long, and then forgotten how to. Maya’s free hand curled into the grass, pulling gently at the blades. Her lips parted, then closed again, the words stuck in her throat. She had spent centuries unravelling the universe’s most confounding mysteries, bending the very fabric of existence to her will. But this moment, this simple act of baring her soul to her wife like she had done so many times before, felt immeasurably more daunting.
Slowly, hesitantly, she reached out, her hand brushing against Chioma’s before entwining their fingers together. The touch was tentative, but Chioma responded with a gentle squeeze, her grip firm yet gentle, grounding Maya in its quiet reassurance.
“Are you in the mood to talk?”
Maya finally asked.
“Yes, what about?”
Maya hesitated again. She focused on the sensation of Chioma’s hand in hers, the quiet strength in the way their fingers locked, drawing courage from the connection.
“I want to talk about Nisa.”