Chapter Text
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In short, and this is a common philosophical sucker punch, mortality is a curse. In all of milky way history, there is no record of an immortal sentient race, much less a singular person, and if there ever was, then she must be extremely private about her life. In every advanced civilization across all sectors and planets, communities have looked up and asked if there was a beyond. More than just a void! There were lights and color! So…. more? At that point, who knew.
No record of forever, but detailed accounts of how people have rebelled against it. Nihilistically, whole groups have dedicated themselves to themselves and told that empty universe to go fuck itself, that their lives will be filled with warmth and light and no higher or lower power can stop them from taking care of their own. Some appealed to that same universe for answers. Found meaning in the way the stars aligned and said ‘it's not just void, it never has been, even nothing will be something if we find it’.
Others found comfort in that void. If the stars were so unfeeling, then neither comfort nor judgement should befall an individual among them. Oh, but how to be with the stars? How to travel that weightless sky and feel every choice you made become miniscule in the face of infinity...that was the dream.
But Ophelia had always had trouble feeling too small. It was never a good feeling, being told she didn't matter. When she realized that beyond her colony there were no sympathizing suns, she felt abandoned. Only after Michael adopted her was she able to modge podge something of a shield against existential insecurity, and it was hardly a consistent one at that.
It went like this:
She used her hands; her hands were useful.
Her hands were useful because she liked to help.
She helped best when she was solving a problem because she liked solving problems.
But she also liked asking questions.
This back and forth engaged her, nurtured her, made her the prodigy her parents wanted so desperately. So along with her exceptional comprehension skills in maths and science...
Ophelia became an engineer.
In the face of losing two families and teetering on the edge of losing herself, after the hurricane of academia she navigated with discomforting grace, past all the clusters of stars and planets she could count from the balcony of the apartment she’s lived in since she was 12, Ophelia became someone that acted. If there was a question, she would pursue it. Never a problem she couldn't eventually solve. She had seen two whole colonies in the course of her entire life and could feel the void between them in such an acute way that for a while she was at a loss as how to address it.
Mortality taught her optimism. Aggressively. Kindness out of spite. Deadlines taught her how to forgive and how to grieve and how to make the best out of a day old pot of coffee. The caveat here though, the one thing trillions of mortal people before her felt just as strongly as gravity or speed.
Death teaches fear. How hard it is to live because of it.
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It doesn't take a super genius to know that being stabbed hurt. Any collection of nerves, when impaled, light like Navi with some Really Important Advice, the “you’ve got mail” of pain.
You’ve been stabbed
What Ophelia didn't know was that people didn't always react to that pain in the way you would think.
For example, in the 7 seconds it took for her to realize that she’d gone from friendly encounter to fatally poked, she had time to think about how much she liked green eyes. She’d suddenly felt a stitch in her side, like she’d been running for too long, so she went to rub at the spot to get it to loosen up and surprise! Knife. Her reaction?
“I get to keep the knife right?” she’s only slightly shaking now, fear registering as something faint and peripheral like the muffled bass behind her. “I mean. Assuming you’re going to leave me here, this is the last thing you give me. Right?”
The figure in front of her cuts a menacing shadow out of the neon lights over head. He stands in such a way that reveals his hesitation, his regret. And still, she looks past it.
“It’s a very nice knife,” she clarifies. She’s not lying either. She know exactly who it belonged to.
It catching up to her now, the adrenaline. She knows her hand is shaking and it not exactly helping her to hold on to the hilt of it, but she can't bring herself to stop. What she can do is slow her descent to the floor, because despite her heavy lean against the wall she finds herself falling...or maybe the floor is just reaching out to her because she swears the walls stretch with it…
Man she really likes green eyes. Michael had hazel eyes, she can't remember exactly what shade because they always turned out red in pictures but
Oh jeez that's blood. That's a looooot of blood. Maybe she she should sit down?
“It’s fine! It’s fine, I’m already sitting, I’m fine,”
“What?”
Oh.
This is the divorce of the only family she's ever loved. A separation of truth and trust. She thinks she hates him now, this man in front of her, and it startles her how suddenly she comes to this emotion.
If you had told her fifteen minutes ago that she would become a… a what? Stabee? Violence receiver?
Ah. Victim.
If you told her she’d become a victim like this, she’d tell you, stubbornly, that she’s not a victim. That she can’t think of anyone who would play her like that. As Optimistic and Persevering as Ophelia Elizabeth Drowner is, she always considered her circumstances products of some discernible beginning. Cause; meet effect. Such is the way her life has gone, however unfair, even in her worst moments, and yet…
And yet…
Here her worst moment is unfolding. Scrap pile puppy clinging to her shoulder broadcasting every panicked thought in vibrant holovision. This is sadistic. All for a zoning bot. Hubble, why didn't she realize that he had–
FUCK, ow, okay, let go of the knife, Ophelia. The shudders are wracking her entire body now. She has to focus on uncurling each finger from the metal hilt and the moment she removes her hand she cant resist closing it back into a fist, like some kind of fatalistic rubber band.
She doesn't like being stabbed.
All thoughts turn to escape. The alley is narrow and she can’t run, but if she stays still long enough he might leave.
Assuming she's still conscious by then. He didn't hit an artery and the knife is still there, obviously, but there's still so much blood…
He steps forward. From down here, the red neon lights a morbid halo crown. The hoodie only slightly obscures his face and stills sees… guilt. It's just him again. This disconnection between his face and his actions set the walls spinning again while she wracks her brain for the last time he looked this malicious.
He’d been so inviting when she ran into him, especially when she was trying to get away from the metallic thump of club heartbeat, so welcome. Just happy to see her. Not this. Not union nightmare in silver gilt. Not a handsome stranger either.
Just Tyrian.
She doesn't think he realizes how scared she is right now. He towers over her, expression flitting from fear to guilt to some icy mask she's never seen. She guesses that's appropriate. She hasn't seen a lot of him since he joined the union, and now his muscular physique only calls attention to his role. Not judge, just deliverer. Executioner.
This is cruel.
He steps forward again, this time slouching against the frame of a busted inka-cola machine. He's taken to stare at the knife instead of her. Anything but her. She guesses this is his way of making it easier; he knows that if he were to look at her now, he would see how much she hates this. How much she hates what made him this way.
Squeezing his eyes shut, he begins to reach for her left shoulder.
He stops.
Tyrian Aquila is a coward. He's a hypocrite and a masochist and a horrible friend. Tonight, he will be an even worse soldier.
Gathering her jacket in one hand and holstering his gun with his other, Tyrian reaches to his own shoulder and clicks his radio off.
Look at me, she wants to yell, Fucking look at me! Come back, please, dont go...
This is bitter.
Lemons. Old milk. Bleach.
He casts one last long look from the mouth of the alley. The red bathes him now. He doesn’t help her up. He doesn't take pearl. He leaves.
This is him saying he didn't not choose her.
This is her telling him to go fuck himself.
She screams.