Some Things Transcend

by M. C. A. Hogarth

  "If... if you're trying to make me feel better—"

  "I am trying," Lisinthir said with a touch of a growl, "—to make you stop wasting the gifts of your Goddess, who did not give you the personality She did because it was flawed clay."

  Vasiht'h's trembling stopped abruptly. His shock was palpable.

  "You are unhappy at the choices in front of you? I cannot blame you. But you will not loathe yourself for not forcing yourself to become a meek duplicate of your partner. To do so disrespects your Goddess and your lover. You are supposed to be different, to complement one another. That makes the work before you harder, but it does not make it impossible."

  "I don't know how to begin," Vasiht'h whispered.

  "Nor will you," Lisinthir said, "until you are thrown into the thick of it. Then I think many things will become clear to you. Until then, you owe yourself and your beloved more than to let this develop into true self-hatred. Would you destroy what you have, when what you have is so rare?"

  "No...!"

  Lisinthir said, "Then I think your course is clear. The immediate one, at least." At the Glaseah's wild look, he said, gently, "Talk with your beloved." He smiled a lopsided smile. "I would say 'cuddle' but no doubt one of you will tell me that you don't."

  "We do, sometimes," Jahir said, quiet.

  "I leave you to it." Lisinthir rose. "I need my bed, given the ramshackle state of my temple."

  As he was stepping through the door to the sleeping chamber, Vasiht'h called, "Lisinthir?"

  He paused.

  "You really cared about her."

  He closed his eyes, saw again her face, the sweetness and the melancholy in her gaze, remembered the devastating and unexpected clarity of her insights, and oh, Dying Air, but the yielding of her body to his hands, his mouth. The kisses of dragons, and that dragon in particular. He drew in a careful breath, then said, very clearly, "I love her still, and will always."

  He left the two of them to their rapprochement.

  Everything in Vasiht'h's body was ringing, as if the space that numbness had hollowed into a Glaseah-shaped shell had been struck from without with a hammer. Just outside that shivering tintinnabulation he could sense Jahir waiting, vibrating in sympathy, wanting passionately to reach for him and no longer sure of himself, if his comfort would be welcome, if his words would not somehow make things worse.

  So wrong. Lisinthir had been right about that much: they were no good for one another when held apart. Vasiht'h groped blindly for Jahir's knee, found it and tightened his fingers on it. A moment later, the Eldritch's palm covered his, brought with it a relief that felt like rain after drought, an image that also managed to evoke tears. Was Jahir crying? Vasiht'h looked up hastily.

  "No," Jahir said, voice husky. "Not on the outside, anyaways."

  "Oh, arii," Vasiht'h whispered. "What have I done to us."

  Jahir didn't answer that, save with a warmth through the mindline that could not be denied.

  "You think... he meant all that?" Vasiht'h said when he was sure of his voice, and to find some way of approaching the wreckage in his heart. "That it was true."

  "I have absolutely no doubt."

  Vasiht'h glanced up at his partner. "You're that certain."

  "Aren't you?"

  Was he? Lisinthir was convincing, but politicians had to be, and what was an ambassador if not a politician? It would be so easy to believe him when he'd been saying things Vasiht'h needed to hear... and yet, nothing in his training suggested that Lisinthir had been deceiving him. So hard to trust, when so much was riding on the results! "Did he tell you about her?"

  A tremor beneath his hand. "He made her known to me, yes."

  "What did she look like? The mutilated wings... that was real?" At Jahir's glance, Vasiht'h flushed, but didn't look away. It had become very important that the Slave Queen exist in his own mind, that she have a reality separate and tangible to him. For an interminable moment, he thought Jahir would pull away, find his request disrespectful or frivolous. But then:

  "Here," Jahir said gently, and made him an image, gifted it through the mindline. A slim shape, not much taller than Vasiht'h himself, muted in hue like sleigh-bells in winter. Female, but shockingly androgynous: he'd been expecting breasts, but she was flat-chested, and her hips were not broad enough to read like a Pelted's body. It made him feel kin to her: did she feel not quite female amid the oversexed males of her species the way he felt not quite male amid the Alliance's many sexually active races?

  The wings weren't just mutilated, but pierced in a decorative pattern, scalloped along the leading edges and pricked throughout their vanes in diamond shapes, and here and there with cut-out thorns. Winged, but unable to fly—again, like him.

  She had orange eyes, and a mane that shadowed them. But in the image she was smiling.

  /Smiling?/ he asked, tentative.

  /In many of his memories, they are in one another's arms, and they are happy there./

  The Slave Queen of the Chatcaava, Vasiht'h thought. A woman whose thoughts had helped shape an empire. There was something of the Goddess in that. How could there not be?

  And this was the person Lisinthir had likened him to in response to his desire to run away from conflict?

  "I don't know what to think," he said at last, because it was true and he could at least begin once more with that, between them.

  Jahir's voice was very soft. "Do you trust me to make a suggestion?"

  "Of course!"

  "The ship has a chapel."

  Vasiht'h paused, surprised.

  "You have always found some peace when you have turned to Aksivaht'h," Jahir said, quiet. More hesitant, "I would make you a paper effigy to take with you, but I don't remember how."

  The Glaseah's heart skipped several beats, and his chest clenched. "That's... that's all right. The effigy's not necessary. It's just... a focus. That's all." He looked up. "You found out about the chapel for me?"

  Jahir's cheeks tinted; he looked down. "I saw it in the Hinichi's dreams. Kordreigh, on the first night. He uses it."

  That prompted memory, brought with it a hazy sense for the safety of the place, and the intimacy of it.

  "Will you go?"

  And if he did? If he prayed and She didn't answer? Vasiht'h shuddered. Yet not to go was to turn his face from Her, and he couldn't do that. He wouldn't. "I think I will, yes." He stood, his limbs uncertain beneath him. Exhaustion? Emotion? He couldn't tell. "Arii...."

  "Vasiht'h." Jahir met his eyes. "I'll be here."

  Vasiht'h swallowed and nodded. Before he could lose his nerve, he left. Only after he'd reached the safety of the corridor did he allow himself the luxury of covering his face with his hands. He wanted so much to believe Lisinthir, but even if he did, what would that change? He would still have to decide whether to follow Jahir into a warzone or leave him to go alone. Assuming that Jahir would return to all this, and somehow Vasiht'h knew he would. How could he not? If the war was coming… and the war was coming. He had gathered that from Lisinthir just from watching him, because Lisinthir no longer moved like someone lost and angry, but like someone making preparations, purposeful, alert, focused.

  No, there would be no evading it with a last-minute peace treaty. So what did that mean for him?

  The computer guided Vasiht'h to the chapel, a room that surprised him with its size; from the Hinichi's dreams he'd assumed it would be barely large enough for him to sit in. Instead it had been designed for at least half the crew to use at a time. It had no pews, no doubt because there'd been no anticipating what species would need it. There was a single altar, unmarked, with a narrow altar cloth hanging over it. The back wall was bare but the cord stretched across the wall was probably used to hang banners for different festivals and religions, depending on who was officiating. Vasiht'h had no idea how such things worked on Fleet vessels; he'd had some sense that it did, but not that so much attention was paid to it, and that made him feel a little better: there were people here who
understood the importance of the Divine. There was even a dim glowing sphere of light projected just above the altar, a meditation focus that replaced the candles that no doubt wouldn't be prudent on a ship, and even under their emergency power restrictions it burned.

  Vasiht'h sat in front of the altar and looked at the light, barely large enough to cup with his hands.

  I'm here, he whispered, finally. I'm not asking for answers.

  That surprised him. He'd been expecting to say something else. He kept going.

  All I'm asking is for the strength not to fail the people I love in what's to come.

  Such quiet. Even the ship was silent beneath his belly, his paws. He waited, hoping for something, for some sign that he was doing the right thing. The light seemed to pulse, so faintly he almost missed it... but other than that... nothing. But something about the waiting... was it that he was putting himself in Her hands? Was it that he knew there was no guarantee of an answer? Maybe what was needful was the courage to live with that uncertainty, and understand that every child of the Goddess was one with him there.

  Vasiht'h did not feel very courageous. But the chapel felt good to him, like a world insulated from the harsh realities waiting for him out the door. The peace of it was seeping into him, working at his fears. So he settled himself, wings folded and head bowed, and let it in.

  Jahir wasn't sure how long he spent on the couch after Vasiht'h left. He was not conscious of making a decision to wait there, particularly since his instincts suggested that the Glaseah might be gone for some time, long enough that he should sleep long ere his partner's return.

  It was just that he couldn't move.

  As much as he wanted to believe that Lisinthir had reprieved them, he couldn't. Everything in him knew, knew with a certainty that felt like his deficient pattern sense at work, that this was important, and that it had not been put to bed yet. But what more could he do to reassure Vasiht'h that he did not have to become something he wasn't in order to be worthy of the life they'd made together?

  The worst of it was... Vasiht'h was so certain that he was the one at fault for his desire not to engage with the war. But what if that was a lie he was telling them both in order to save them pain? What if Vasiht'h felt that his way was the only sane way, and Jahir's desire to embrace a duty that necessitated violence was the uncivilized path? What if he was right?

  What if Vasiht'h repudiated him?

  It was the cold that drove him to his feet finally, for his nightclothes were not thick enough for the chill that had become common on the ship. He stumbled upright and to the door, pausing there to let his eyes adjust to the dark. Then he headed for the pillows... and almost tripped over his own feet when Lisinthir said in their tongue, void of any mood inflection, "You're alone. I hadn't expected you to be."

  "Cousin," Jahir managed, and no more.

  Lisinthir sighed and caught his arm, pulled him to the bed and into it. Jahir had nothing in him to resist, though he was mutely glad his cousin didn't try to strip him, given his gooseflesh. But Lisinthir did nothing more wrap an arm around his waist and tuck him close, back to chest. With the covers over them both, their combined body heat stilled the tremors Jahir hadn't even been aware of suffering.

  "Where is your beloved?" Lisinthir said after a time, his breath warm against Jahir's neck.

  "I sent him to the chapel."

  "That was well-done. Though he has been gone a while."

  "I did not expect him back soon." Jahir closed his eyes, fighting a disorientation made more acute by the darkness and the warmth.

  Lisinthir's hand brought him very abruptly back into his body, though all his cousin had done was slip it up his shirt to rest it on his heart. Jahir could feel the smooth metal of the Imthereli ring against his skin, the callus the ring had worn into the flesh at its edge.

  "Stay with me, cousin," Lisinthir murmured. "One half of you needs to be present, or there is no hope for you both."

  "Cousin—"

  "Yes," Lisinthir said. "Exactly that." He kissed the back of Jahir's shoulder, gentle. "So I am allowed to fret for you."

  The notion of someone who'd very lately been concerning himself for the fate of nations spending some of that anxiety on him was endearing. It made him smile despite himself.

  "Better." Lisinthir smiled against his shoulder, then said, "You have forgotten that I said something that disarmed you, but I have not."

  Jahir glanced over his shoulder, saw only the edge of Lisinthir's jaw. "I don't recall."

  "You are preoccupied." The hand on his heart caressed him, soothing rather than arousing. "But I spoke of preferring the fight to powerlessness, and you had a moment's unease. Perhaps I was implying something about the relative merits of being one way or the other."

  The conversation seemed very long ago, but Jahir remembered that moment. "I thought it, yes. But... it didn't last. I didn't think you would think less of me for being what I am."

  The hand on his chest paused. "You mean that."

  Did he? "Yes." Saying it made him certain, brought with it visceral memory of all the times he'd felt Lisinthir's response to his... what should he call it? Ease with powerlessness? Eagerness for it? "You love the Slave Queen, who has this yielding in her. You would not call her craven for it." He looked over his shoulder again. "Am I right?"

  "You are." Lisinthir met his eyes. "You and she both must have a courage particular to your personalities, and so long as you exercise that courage, then you cannot be craven."

  "And this courage," Jahir murmured. "Is exercised on what battlefield?"

  A smile, wintry: it colored Lisinthir's voice as he said, "In choosing who to yield to, and in waiting until you are safe in the choosing. And then in the trusting, once you have given your allegiance... and again in the withdrawal, if it becomes clear there is no longer safety or honor in it."

  Jahir tasted those concepts slowly, as if they were water and he too long deprived, not wanting to glut himself. At last, he said, "Those are significant difficulties."

  "Thus, the courage," Lisinthir said. "I think I have the easier path, to be honest. But I would, as it is the path natural to me." The smile in his voice now was more genuine, warmed the words.

  "A great deal of risk," Jahir mused. "To make such evaluations."

  "Fortunate it is that you are a trained psychologist, mm?"

  That amused him despite himself. He looked over his shoulder again, found the expected mischief. He also saw the faint etching of lines around his cousin's eyes. "Pain?" he asked. "Is the nerve block wearing thin?"

  "It holds admirably. You merely see the evidence of my... concerns."

  Jahir sighed. "We were the ones who were supposed to be worried about you."

  "And perhaps you will be again when we return to an arena where you are comfortable," Lisinthir said. "But we have moved into an arena where my talents are necessary and yours must wait. We trade roles... that is the dance." A kiss on Jahir's shoulder, familial. "But fear less, cousin. There will be an ending soon."

  The quiver that ran his length nauseated him, but he could not articulate his anxieties. Saying that he feared the ending he was approaching was that of the innocence of his relationship with Vasiht'h... he didn't want to make it that real.

  Through his skin he felt Lisinthir's wordless reassurance, and he allowed that to lull him, that and the warmth they had made beneath the blankets. And after a time he said, because it was owed and true, "I have chosen you."

  He felt Lisinthir raise his head, just a little, the pillow crinkling.

  "To trust with my yielding," Jahir continued. "And I have faith in my own evaluation of your worth, and the quality of your heart." He paused, frowning. "Strange how that implies my own. It does, doesn't it?"

  "That," Lisinthir said, his approval a warm hush in his voice, "is exactly what it implies. And is why you must value your soul as the God and Lady made it. There is no other way to give yourself safely, save that you respect the gift."

>   How simple that seemed, suddenly. Where had he read that the true solutions to problems revealed themselves because they were beautiful? "Remarkable."

  "O my cousin." Lisinthir sighed, his relief tangible against Jahir's skin. "I think you will be fine. Just fine."

  "Maybe," Jahir allowed.

  "You will show him the way. Did I not say earlier? You have chosen to walk a path together and that is how you must learn. You have undertaken this lesson. He will come with you."

  "You're so certain," Jahir whispered.

  "Watch and see, cousin." Lisinthir kissed the nape of his neck, and that made him flush, made him aware of his body again… stung him to life. Such a small intimacy, to wake him so completely to the world. How he wanted Lisinthir to be right!

  "Did you not say you trust me with your yielding?" his cousin said. "Then right now, in this moment, trust me my prediction, knowing that for months I risked the welfare of three nations on the strength of similar ones." The fingers on his chest spread, as if to cup his beating heart. "The two of you will come out of this, and it will make you stronger. Your love will permit you to do no less for one another."

  That sounded so plausible he could not help but smile.

  "Now," Lisinthir murmured, "Stay here, under my arm, and rest. We have a great deal to do tomorrow and I fear you will find none of it pleasant."

  "More practice—"

  "In the corridors, fleeing imagined dragons."

  Jahir flinched. "Yes. I see."

  "But not until tomorrow." A little nip, tugging at the skin just behind his ear; Lisinthir held it between his teeth and didn't let go, and all Jahir's thoughts fragmented over a haze of sensation until his cousin released him. "Yes?"

  All Jahir could think of to say in reply was, "...what?"

  Lisinthir laughed breathily against his shoulder. "God and Lady and Living Air, but I am going to ride you hard and put you away wet, when we are free."