Chapter Text
Epilogue Promise?
Two boys lounge on the edge of a pool, staring into the glowing depths. Waves of blue and purple light dance across their faces, turn their skin into a milky white, their silence into something deeply meaningful.
One of the boys taps the surface of the water with the flat of his palm. It ripples out. His reflection, partially back-lit by the space knots hanging between the stars overhead, flutters.
“Did you know that there used to be people who lived in space?” the other boy asks, smiling.
This is his family’s house, a little clump of homes shoved into the side of the mountain. Below them, sloping across the yards of dirt and paved road, is a sprawling city. The boy’s friend lives there but often comes up here because down there isn’t always the best place to be. The friend says nothing, only turning to look over. One skein of hair falls over his left eye, obscuring it and making him seem even more mysterious.
Relentlessly, the princely boy continues. “They actually lived there like it didn’t give them ultra-space-cancer. And they were awful, they tried to take over all the planets and strip them of resources and kill all the people.” He stops, suddenly nervous. He had felt in a heartbeat that pouring out all the knowledge he learned from private tutors would sound impressive. Not feeling sure about that anymore, he pauses.
“No, I heard about that too. They were called ‘Stationers’ because they lived on stations, duh,” the boy sticks his tongue out, splashes some water. “Sometimes I have dreams that I’m on one of those Stations. I’m running around and really tall and then I get a special mission. It’s weird, it feels so real.”
“Me too!” More splashing. “Powerful gods, I get the exact same thing. Do you also have dreams that you’re riding a giant statue? Like fighting something and using swords and shooting rays of light from your hands? I dreamt you in it, that’s why I asked.” The boy laughs uncertainly. He wonders if he just exposed a nerve, peeled back a layer of flesh somewhere he shouldn’t have. This friendship had taken a weird turn recently, since they had started to grow taller and get irritable all the time.
“... Actually, yeah,” the friend says, “That’s weird. Maybe it’s ‘cause of a movie we both watched?”
“Yeah… Maybe. Anyway, do you want to go to the stars some day? They do some space trips to other planets at my school. I could sneak you in.”
A small chuckle, “That would be nice.”
The moment tenses, coils around them. It feels weird and different from before, in a way neither boy knows how to understand, let alone put into words. Not sure what else to do, the boy whose house this was makes a sudden decision.
He slides into the pool and grabs his friend’s hand, tugging him down with him.
Water splatters the ground above them. The boy smiles, bubbles pouring out from his grin. The other boy’s eyes widen, his hair floating around him like a trailing jellyfish. Bubbles, tinged blue and purple, float off of him too as he grins back. Before long he swims up, already a powerful swimmer, and they both break the surface.
Wet, sopping hair floats around them and curtains eyes. The friends laugh at the strangeness, the weirdness, the odd feeling that they had found some new level of friendship. They didn’t know what it meant. Except that it felt nice to brag to each other and smile when an adult said something stupid and look at each other like only they knew the other person.
“Can we be friends? Forever?”
“Yes. Forever. Until the end of all time.”