She turned her head and gave him a watery smile, though it did not quite reach her eyes, already swollen and red from all her tears. Perhaps he should make a cold compress when they returned to the ship, the better to reduce any subsequent discomfort for her.
Stars began to twinkle at them, doubtlessly planets did as well though he was not versed enough in their location to know their names or what world they represented.
It was odd to view them from on-world, to stop and simply watch them rather than through the confines of viewscreens as they moved quickly along, always on the move, questing for something.
Clairy made another swipe at her eyes, and he would have to intervene soon lest she harm herself in her frustration. “Are you going to let me introduce you to my family now?” she asked, and he should have expected her to use her upset to her advantage, for he could hardly say no.
In truth, he would prefer to appear before them, already her husband. She claimed that such surprises were never met with joy, but it was still his preference, regardless of what she said. They would be married then, and they would be unable to do anything with their inevitable objections. He had been studying the customs and laws of her Reigal VII, and there was much to reform there, and he was willing to do it.
Quietly, and without notice.
Perhaps even relying on tactics that did not include carefully planned accidents for those in the highest in rank.
But maybe.
He would have Clairy safe. He would keep her family safe.
He would not have her weeping that one of her sisters had been taken unwillingly to wife by an overseer.
He would not stand her tears if a girl that her brother courted was snatched away before he could pursue her.
But if she forced him to begin a transmission so soon...
They were not married yet. And while Clairy had a firmness of mind when it suited her, it was not without his notice that he had somehow convinced her that he was worth knowing.
Worth loving.
Could she be convinced to do otherwise?
She was pressed as close to his side as possible, his arm holding her there while she nestled so sweetly.
Maybe she was not so very malleable. Perhaps she knew when to be hard, when to remain firm when it was what was right. Or, at least, what she truly believed to be.
The baby she had insisted on saving was proof enough of that. She was tucked away with her new family, just as Clairy was with him now, and he could feel the rightness of it. Of listening to her, of valuing her input.
He felt a moment’s regret over his rash actions with the first facility. He did not often choose to dwell on exactly who had been lost, on how many of his kind had been ended as well as the masters who were making them, but now... he felt sorrow.
That he had not saved them.
Freed them.
As Clairy had done for him.
It was watching 932 that had first stirred him into action, into the rebellion that had taken hold of him so completely. But it would not have occurred to him to enjoy the little freedoms that came. Those stemmed from her.
Adding comforts to his quarters.
Learning and researching things he did not know, simply because he wanted to know them.
Selecting a variety of foods from different worlds because it pleased Clairy whenever she could add something to her growing lists of things she liked, and amused him greatly when she could adamantly determine that she hated something else.
“Cydrin?” she queried, peering up at him. “Are you all right? You never answered my question.”
He leaned down and rested his head against the top of hers. “Apologies,” he murmured, noting how cold even her hair had become. They would need to return soon to their vessel, back where environmental controls and plenty of blankets would see her warm again.
But he would allow her to dictate the timing—within reason. He would not see her ill, but she had been restricted on ship for far too long, even if it was by her own making.
“Are you still going to refuse?” she asked with a sigh, her head plunking down against his chest again not quite so sweetly. “I still think you’re being a little ridiculous. I’m the one that knows them, and I’ve told you how they’ll react.”
He hummed low in his throat, a sound he had heard her make when she was doubtful of him or his words. Not an outright argument, but communication all the same.
She brought one of her arms about his middle, presumably so she could return his embrace, or perhaps she simply wished to indulge her frustration by squeezing him. Either explanation seemed entirely plausible.
“You cannot be certain how they will respond,” he reminded her. “As you have never announced your intention to marry before.” He glanced down at her, only half serious. “Or have you failed to share a detail with me regarding your past?”
He grew suspicious when he caught the faint change of colour in her cheeks, only visible by the brightness of the moon shining down on them.
He was amazed any were able to sleep on this planet if such a very great moon was reflecting back at them.
“I was ten years old and Grengor Switherton had just kissed me and I told Mama that we’d be getting married in the spring.”
Cydrin frowned, every part of his research indicating that such marriages were entirely outlawed in civilised societies. Perhaps he had misinterpreted how derelict her homeworld truly had become. “And how old was this Grengor?” he asked, wondering if he had stumbled upon some great wound that would require intervention.
Or some of his more particular skills to see his Clairy avenged.
But Clairy merely rolled her eyes at him, and perhaps he had misjudged the severity of the situation. “Eleven. And of course we couldn’t have married, we weren’t of age. But I remember how elated I was. Ran all the way home from the hollow to tell Mama.”
Cydrin did not like the turn of his conversation, did not like knowing that Clairy harboured feelings for someone else—this Grengor. Did she still?
She narrowed her eyes at him, obviously noticing something in his unflappable expression that she did not care for. “You needn’t be jealous. He started ignoring me after that and married a girl from five farms over.”
Cydrin did not know how to respond to that. She did not sound upset at the knowledge that he had married another, but it was likely best to clarify. “And that did not trouble you?”
She huffed out a breath, her body not quite so pliant as it had been. He did not care for her stiffened posture, as it suggested he had maddened her in some way. “I was devastated. When I was ten. I thought I’d found the boy who was going to marry me. But then later I found out he’d kissed me on a dare and... never really liked me that way at all.”
Despite her claims, there were the remnants of hurt in her voice, and he could well imagine them. He was not entirely certain what a dare was, but he understood the outcome well enough. He could readily picture the devastation he would have experienced if he learned that her smiles, the way her hand felt in his... the kisses they had shared...
If those had stemmed from anything but the care and affection she had fostered for him...
He did not think those wounds would be easily mended, even with the steady passage of time.
“He treated you wrongly,” Cydrin declared, pulling her so he could wrap both arms about her. She had not informed him of an additional need for comfort, but perhaps he was growing more attuned to her universalised needs.
Or maybe it was an impulse of his own.
To hold her close, to banish unpleasant memories in favour of new ones.
New ones with him.
“Yes,” Clairy agreed. “He did. But as you see, I have told my mother that I was marrying someone.” She wriggled so she could look up at him. “And she’d smiled even then, although at the time I would have to wait a while before doing it.”
That was quite what he feared.
“We don’t have to now, though,
” she assured him. “We’ll... obviously we’ll have to be wedded before we get there, in any case.” Her smile faded somewhat, hints of sadness closing in where only contentment should be. “It would have been nice to have them there. But I know they can’t,” she hastened to add, as if Cydrin was the one that required assurance.
He did not.
He knew what was required to see their plan fulfilled, and coming to her planet with their new titles was paramount to her safety.
And that would be his priority, even over sentiment.
His hand stroked over the length of her back, skimming over the line of her hair, delving to run his thumb against the smooth skin of her neck. “I am sorry that you will not have your family with you on our wedding day.”
It was true enough, although the more selfish parts of him were glad to have her to himself. For their pledges to be private things, with no ceremony to keep them settled just so, free to do as they pleased.
“Me too. Which is why,” she wheedled. “I would like to include them in what parts I can.” He did not like the look in her eye. “Like introducing them to my intended rather than my husband.”
It was an argument he clearly was not going to win. Not without engaging in tactics that he would never once consider using on her. He would not frighten her into compliance, would not deny her things that were within his power to provide, even if it included some level of personal discomfort for himself.
He sighed, leaning down again to press a kiss to the top of her head. His resignation might afford its own pleasures. And perhaps she was right, and her family was as welcoming as she claimed, and he was solely in the wrong.
Doubtful, but possible.
“I would deny you nothing,” he murmured into her hair, almost hoping it was too low for her to hear. But there was no mistaking her smile, the warmth in her expression as she beamed at him, and he supposed he had chosen rightly.
He had half expected her to scamper back toward the ship immediately, to begin the transmission and make her announcement before he had time to change his mind. But she remained with him, listening to the lapping of the waves in the distance, a gentle whooshing of sound that came from a not so gentle source.
“What happens if you don’t like it?” she asked.
“I shall like remaining with you,” he hedged, wishing he could remain in this moment, could somehow keep the contentment he had found there. All because of her.
“Cydrin, I’m being serious,” she complained, peering back up at him with the beginnings of a scowl. He had been serious—whenever had he not been?—but evidently she found his answer lacking in any case. “What if you don’t like the people, or the life, or the work and... and we’ll be married properly, right? You won’t just... leave will you?”
He had thought he had made this clear, but apparently not. “If we do not care for the life there, then we shall leave. We may settle wherever we like and make a new life there. Perhaps even transport some of your family if they are agreeable to come.”
Doubtlessly she would want to make changes to the cells as she called them, but it could be done. He did not relish the thought of a host of strangers being in his craft, but he would do it if she asked.
And maybe they would not be strangers by then. Maybe they would extend the invitation to deign him family, even if the bonds only came through marriage.
Clairy was making him optimistic, and while instinct bade him be careful, it was easy to dream here, the universe lain out before them in a velvet sky, tiny pricks of light indicating all that might be possible.
“I want you to be happy too,” she reiterated.
Foolish girl.
“I have seen what I make of my life when I am alone. I do not care to repeat it.”
He counted the time with the masters as a portion of that, knowing well that if he’d been exposed to Clairy’s influence, things might have been different. She had a different sort of mind, one that saw good in the world and how to propagate more, and he... he needed more of that.
She gave him a doubtful look, and he gave her a kiss in return, trying to banish her doubts that were so wholly unfounded. “If your home is a place, imperfect but filled with those you love, then mine is wherever you choose to be. And I would not abandon my home.”
Her eyes were watering again, perhaps from the sting of the salty breeze as it sent another chill through the both of them, or perhaps because she found fault with his words. Or liked them. He never could quite tell with her and her tears.
“I’d like to marry you,” she managed to get out even with the sudden return of her upset. “Soon. I don’t know how we’ll manage it without making a fuss on some planet, but I want to do it. And for it to be proper, and binding, and...” her eyes flickered to his and he could see the darkening of her cheeks again. “And real.”
There was a host of meanings he could infer from her words, and he should likely ask for specific clarification to what she referred, but for some reason, he did not feel the need.
For he felt quite the same.
He did not know if he could manage all that she had asked, as he did not have an identity within the intergalactic registry. But there were many who did not, and they managed well enough, their bindings recognised by commitment and subsequent children.
The thought of that still made him uneasy, but he thought of the child they had just surrendered, the... fondness he had fostered for her, merely by her proximity, and supposed that having one come of Clairy and himself would not be... wholly disagreeable.
“I am captain of my own vessel,” he reminded her. “Many of the oldest customs suggest that captains were able to preside over a marriage aboard his craft. Would it be wrong to assume he could do the same while taking vows of his own?”
Clairy laughed, though less politely it could have been considered a snort. “Probably. But I won’t pretend to be an expert. As long as at the end of it we’re really married.”
There was documentation he could file, alerting the registry office of their union. It would simply be names and the official stardate, but hopefully that would be enough to satisfy her. It was all he could truly offer without landing in a foreign place and attempting to convince them to be a part of something that felt private and...
Sacred.
In its way. For her to bind herself to him, and blessedly, for her to wish for him to do the same.
It amazed him slightly that he could find it so, when all it truly included was two people pledging their lives and financial institutions to include one another. But the more he’d read, the more he felt for the woman still in his arms, the more he recognised that it was a unique exchange. One worthy of some semblance of revere, despite his nature to find fault and condemn.
Clairy gave another shiver, and prudence made him enquire yet again if she was ready to return. “You are cold,” he prompted, not yet willing to take a step backward and bodily urge her back toward the vessel, but wondering if he trusted the environment enough to go and retrieve warmer clothing for her if she was determined to stay.
He did not.
He did not fear that she would disappear, that she would run off to be lost in the waves where he could not reach her. But that did not preclude her from other dangers, from thieves and vagabonds that would seek to scoop her up and keep her goodness for themselves.
He should know, after all.
Clairy nodded in agreement. “I am,” she confirmed. Good, at least she was not delusional. “But you are warm, and this place is lovely.”
She was not wrong in that, either.
But when she shivered again and he placed a finger to her cheek and found it as cold as he expected, he sighed. “Clairy...”
She took a deep breath and then another, as if she could take some of the fresh night air with her when she inevitably returned to the ship.
“We will not travel forever,” he reminded her, in case she had forgotten. “And if you wish to stop along the way, we shall do so.”<
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Perhaps it was the wrong thing to say, as there was a brief look of anguish before she smoothed her features once again. She accepted his hand as they walked back toward the ship, and he was surprised how far they had actually ventured from it in her upset.
“That’s true,” she murmured, although she did not sound entirely pleased by it.
He should not be surprised, not when her freedom was the result of losing their little charge to her new parents.
But for all the sadness, he knew it was right. And he hoped Clairy could remember that as well.
They entered the ship, and Cydrin ordered the environment to increase in temperature, the better to warm Clairy through after too long in the cold. She was beginning to sniffle, doubtlessly because of a combination of her tears and a difficult adjustment to the planet, and he watched as she disappeared below. Hopefully she would find some warm clothes as well as tend to her more immediate needs.
He went to the cockpit and sat down with a sigh. He hesitated before selecting any sort of destination, and he sat considering his options for longer than he’d meant to because Clairy suddenly returned, settling down beside him. She had removed one of the blankets from her bed and wrapped it about herself, adding bulk that most assuredly was not there.
He wondered if she would be all right resting there alone, with no companion to occupy her time as well as her sleeping space. Would she ever be bold enough to come to his door when sleep eluded her, asking to remain with him?
The cots were not wide enough to accommodate two comfortably, and he wondered if by ripping apart part of the neighbouring cells something might be combined to allow them to remain together.
He would have to give that thought, for that seemed an important element of marital unity.
“We’re still here,” Clairy commented, noting rightly that nothing had changed since she’d disappeared down below.
Cydrin gave a shrug, not knowing what to explain other than he felt a need now to ensure she wished to go where he ordered the ship to take them.
“What are you thinking about?” she pressed when he did not give a vocal response, and there was a curious hint of trepidation in her voice. “Haven’t changed your mind, have you? We’re... we’re going home, aren’t we? And not heading for the third facility?”
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