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The first time Miorine sees them, it’s barely more than a passing glance.
Suletta’s pulling her suit on for another duel and Miorine’s actually there this time. She’s propped up against the far wall, a knot of worry in her stomach and a blank expression on her face.
She’s putting her trust in Suletta for this. If Suletta fails, she gets expelled and Aerial gets scrapped. Miorine would have to deal with the fallout herself. She would be punished just as much. She would likely never recover from such a loss.
But Miorine would be lying if she said she cared about that latter aspect even in the slightest. She’s worried for Suletta and Suletta alone. She doesn’t want to admit that she’s placing her trust in Suletta because she actually cares about her, but she’s having a hard time finding excuses for herself.
Suletta is the only one capable. That must be it. Miorine is placing her trust in Suletta because she’s the only one who has a chance.
Suletta raises her right arm up in the air, stretching her body up to reach down with her left hand and tug her jumpsuit on. The sleeve of the t-shirt around her arm falls and bunches up around her shoulder, just barely revealing the lighter tan skin beneath. There’s a rough patch of skin cutting through the soft skin like a dagger.
Miorine’s eyes brush over them, barely sparing them a single, passing thought.
Suletta has scars.
Of course she would.
Miorine never thinks about them.
She’s busy, bouncing from place to place and day to day like a strangely slow whirlwind. For a while, Suletta pulls her along with happy smiles and excited words. And even when she doesn’t, Miorine’s worries get the better of her and she paces the grounds anyway. Sometimes she tends to her garden simply to take her mind off of other things. Sometimes she wanders the school for no reason at all, and she’s definitely not keeping an eye out for a head of red hair.
She tries to focus on her school and her life, but things feel strangely empty for a suddenly long, agonizing week. Miorine struggles with her plants and finds herself wandering almost aimlessly or burying herself in work more often than not. She stops understanding the things in class.
Miorine realizes she hasn’t seen Suletta for what she can only describe is an extended amount of time. Really seen her, not just in passing or across the room in class. At first it’s nothing to worry about, since if Miorine’s busy then Suletta must be too.
She comforts herself by tricking herself into believing it. She still sees Suletta around plenty, especially in class and such. Just because she isn’t essentially assaulting Miorine every day after class doesn’t mean anything special. Miorine can tell Suletta’s not avoiding her, at least.
They’re just both too busy.
The trash begins to pile up within Miorine’s room. Her room has never been the image of “pristine,” but she does usually deal with the trash at least biweekly. She doesn’t even realize she’s forgotten until she looks up and sees nothing but empty bags and cleaned-out takeout containers all over her desk.
Miorine sighs, gets up, walks all of two steps, and then shoves all the trash to the ground. There. Out of sight, out of mind.
The trash piles up on the desk at least twice more. Miorine tries her best to not think about it.
Miorine catches sight of Suletta talking to Elan, that snake. She storms up as quickly as her feet will take her with respect to the menacing posture she’s trying really, really hard to maintain. Elan always gave her the creeps.
“She’s recruiting team members for her exam,” Elan says with a deadpan expression, no feeling in his voice at all. Miorine blinks. Is that what Suletta has been doing all this time? Searching for team members?
“In that case,” Miorine huffs, almost offended that Suletta didn’t come to her first. Didn’t she know better by now? “Forget him. Why don’t you ask me?”
Halfway to her room, Miorine realizes she hasn’t cleaned at all. She stops for a moment, considering whether or not to even bring Suletta in today. It would be better if she had a day to at least make the place presentable.
“Ah, M-Miss Miorine?” Suletta stutters, stopping behind Miorine and looking down with a confused expression. “I-Is…something wrong?”
Bah. Miorine hardly cares. It’s not like she’s trying to impress the stuttering mess of a girl behind her. Suletta is held together with tape and string, Miorine doesn’t need her approval.
“It’s nothing,” Miorine says and continues on swiftly, hearing Suletta sputter behind her and jog forward with a stumble to catch back up. None of them are perfect, and Miorine doubts Suletta would actually have anything to say about it.
Suletta can barely get her own words out of her mouth. They’re all a little bit imperfect.
Later that night, after Miorine has gone over page after page and chapter after chapter with Suletta, she sees them again.
This time, the situation is different. It’s quieter, lighter. The threat of their worlds aren’t bearing down on them and, even if Suletta is still a little worried about the upcoming exam, the moments they share are soft. Gentle.
Miorine lends Suletta her nightgown for the night, curling her lips when Suletta says. “I-It’s fine! I’ll just wear my r-regular clothes to b-bed!” Suletta gets a stern talking to after that one, but Miorine can’t find it in herself to put any bite behind her words. There’s a smile tugging at the corners of her lips that she’s fighting to keep down.
Suletta ends up looking thoroughly talked to, though, saluting to Miorine and taking the nightgown with gentle hands a moment later. She turns, walking a few steps to the edge of the room and staring at the door. She stops then, turning back to Miorine with a sidelong glance.
“U-Um, M-Miss Miorine?” Suletta asks quietly, her muscles stiff with tension. Miorine hums from her position at her desk, placing her pen against her lips idly and turning in her chair to raise an eyebrow across the room at Suletta. “D-D-Did you want me t-to ch-change in h-here o-o-or…”
Sudden heat rises to Miorine’s cheeks. Wherever did Suletta get that preposterous idea? Seriously, there’s no logical way she could ever come to such a conclusion, no matter how awkward she is. Miorine’s pen slips from her grasp and falls, clinking to the ground with a soft patter.
“D-Do what you want!” Miorine shouts, unable to even formulate a thought against Suletta. She reaches down quickly, grasping for her pen and averting her eyes from the curious ones from across the room.
Miorine grabs her pen at the same moment she hears shuffling from Suletta’s corner of the room. She looks up, her bangs falling down around her face and her breath caught in her throat.
She only catches a little glimpse, just the glint of what Suletta hides underneath her clothes. She only looks long enough to see Suletta grab the edges of her shirt and begin to pull it up, but it’s enough.
Miorine turns away quickly, almost frantically, spinning around and placing both hands on the desk in front of her. She breathes hard, squeezing her eyes shut and telling her brain to shut up. But it’s too late, the sight of Suletta’s lower back is burned into her mind completely.
The skin there is rough and patchy, scars stretching taut over the skin and discolored patches of skin blemishing her tan complexion. It’s the beginnings of what Miorine suspects is a great expanse of connected cuts, scrapes, and scars that blight Suletta’s perfect skin. She can’t be sure, but it feels like the large, jagged one spanning from Suletta’s left hip probably goes all the way up to her shoulder. It certainly didn’t appear small.
Miorine breathes out to expel the tension in her shoulders and shakes her head softly, chasing away the images of bare skin and fussed tissue. She’s got work to do, doesn’t she? She’s going to make absolutely sure that Suletta passes this damn exam. She doesn’t have time to be thinking about scars and soft, bare skin.
Miorine gets just about no work done for the rest of that night.
She tries, she really does. She waits until Suletta pads out of the room with a quiet goodbye and sits at her desk for hours even after the lights have shut off. She stares at the screen in front of her and wills the information to be processed in her mind. She needs to know this stuff.
But her mind keeps drifting to what it would feel like to touch those scars. What they would look like if Suletta’s shirt rode just that little bit higher. Why the scars are hidden beneath her clothes and the rest of her skin is completely unblemished.
Miorine’s no fool. She understands that Mercury is one of the rougher planets around. The civilization there barely got up and running, and it’s certainly not about to make any sort of name for itself with its low population and lack of anything to take pride in. Miorine knows it must be hard to live there.
But those scars. Were they natural? Was the skin discoloration from sunbleaching, or were they chemical marks? Were those scars from long days under the rocks...or wounds from battles and a life lived in back alleys.
All at once, Miorine realizes she knows far, far too little about Suletta. All she knows is the sweet smiles and warm words, the soft hands and happy eyes. She knows nothing about Suletta’s past or future.
Miorine isn’t expecting an answer. She heads to bed when she realizes that she will honestly not be getting anything more done tonight. Not for a lack of trying, she supposes. It took her at least a few hours to realize it was a lost cause, but even still she got through at least one booklet on support management. Net positive, she comforts herself with.
Her eyes are closed and her blanket is drawn up but, for the life of her, Miorine cannot get to sleep. There’s a persistent tap-tap-tap coming from the other room and a tiny sliver of light still shining through the halls. Miorine sighs and tries her best to let it go, turning over a few times and tussling to and fro. It doesn’t work.
After half an hour, she gets worried. She knows Suletta is serious about passing this exam, that much was obvious from earlier. But even still, this much is absurd. It simply cannot be healthy, no matter how hypocritical that is for Miorine to think.
Miorine slips out from under the covers silently, taking care not to make any sudden noise and scare Suletta. She’s trying her best to be conscious of Suletta and her wishes, but there is definitely a cutoff. Miorine tries her best not to think about why she even cares in the first place.
“Aren’t you going to sleep?” Miorine asks, peering down at Suletta seated on the steps. Suletta turns, surprised at first. Her eyes soften a moment later and she lowers her tablet.
“O-Oh, I’m sorry,” she whispers, already apologizing for doing nothing wrong. “It’s just that I’m behind on my studies.”
Yes, Miorine could tell. It really doesn’t take that much of a genius.
Miorine crouches to the ground, hugging her green overcoat to her sides. She turns her eyes to Suletta from behind her bangs, carefully avoiding the raised skin on the back of Suletta’s neck that Miorine knows leads down into her clothes.
The flashes of bare skin come to her from behind her eyes anyway, but Miorine pushes each and every one away to focus on what’s right in front of her. She takes her chance while she sees it, talking to Suletta casually in the dead of night.
She learns a little of Suletta’s past then. She’d chalk it up as a win if it weren’t for the way frustration boiled beneath her skin and Suletta’s words made her feel warm in all the wrong ways.
Starting a school back on Mercury? What a horrible, needless burden. But here Suletta is, carrying it all the same and staying up late into the night just for them. Just for them, who will never understand what Suletta put herself through for them. They will never appreciate all the work Suletta puts in.
“How admirable of you,” Miorine says, already standing. She can’t bear to look at Suletta any more. She can’t stand to hear the happy, soft voice of someone who shoulders such a hefty burden for no other reason that they want to.
This is what she wants to do? It takes all of Miorine’s energy not to laugh. So instead, she walks out of the room.
Miorine catches another glimpse of darkened skin and the rough patch of a scar on the back of Suletta’s shoulder, her nightgown falling just low enough to reveal it. Miorine turns her head and returns to her room, closing her eyes and clenching her teeth.
Will they understand the pain Suletta’s putting herself through for their sake? Will they ever appreciate the long days, the stress, the sacrifices? Will they ever thank her for all she’s done? Miorine thinks not.
Say, Suletta…those people you work so tirelessly for…will they ever understand that those scars were for their sake? Do they even know they exist?
Will you ever tell them that those scars are their fault?
Finding a dress for Suletta is easier said than done.
Miorine has one in mind, of course. There’s a red one somewhere in or around her closet that she’s never worn. She faintly recalls it being a gift from someone at some point. Probably Guel, if she is to be perfectly honest. But where it came from isn’t important.
What’s important is that it leaves Suletta’s shoulders entirely uncovered. Miorine still hasn’t seen the entirety of Suletta’s back, but she knows that at the very least she has a wicked scar on her shoulder and a blackened patch of skin that leads down from the base of her neck. Those will pretty much be on display if Miorine gets Suletta to wear this dress.
She’s considering going out and buying a new dress, since she can’t find anything that both covers the entire back and also would fit Suletta in size and aesthetic. She certainly wouldn’t fit into a dress that was small even on Miorine, and Miorine has the sneaking suspicion she wouldn’t look very good in purple.
Miorine imagines it for a second. At first, she thought her color options were rather limited. Purple and orange are easily off the table, but Miorine has decided that if she already looks good in white and wouldn’t mind something blue, Suletta could probably wear most of the things in Miorine’s possession.
But then, blue is also definitely off the table. Miorine already has her dress picked out, and she knows for sure that she does not want to be matching with Suletta. It makes them feel too much like a couple. It brings a soft blush to Miorine’s cheeks that she knows she would not be able to handle for an entire night.
So red was the choice. Green or white or maybe even yellow might work just fine, but Miorine doesn’t have anything in any of those colors that would fit Suletta. She groans to herself, placing her head against her desk and banging her fist on the table.
“Ah!” comes a yelp from behind her, causing Miorine to whirl around and face off against whoever dares interrupt her lamenting. Oh, it’s Suletta. Of course it is. “M-M-M-Miss M-Miorine! I-I-I’m sorry!”
Miorine sighs and places two fingers against the bridge of her nose, already feeling the migraine approaching. She can’t even begin to guess what Suletta’s apologizing for this time.
“It’s fine,” Miorine says tiredly, forcing herself to her feet with a wince and waving Suletta closer. Suletta follows her order slowly, as if she’s scared of making Miorine mad. “Come on, I won’t bite. I’m trying to figure out what you’re going to wear for the Incubation Party.”
“O-Oh!” Suletta perks up, interested now. Miorine walks to her room, not waiting for Suletta to follow her and knowing she wouldn’t have to anyway. Suletta peeks her head into the room a second later. “Th-Thank you v-very much!”
“For what?” Miorine grumbles, kicking a random pile of clothes near her closet and sifting through them, looking for the dress. She checks the closet itself, too, searching everywhere she thinks it could be.
“For l-lending me a dress. I-It’s very k-kind of you to do that.”
“I could hardly let you make a fool of yourself in front of the most influential people in the solar system.” Miorine shoves another handful of hangers, a spot of red catching her eye. “Aha! Here it is!”
Miorine holds up the dress, frowning at the wrinkles and patting down the parts where it’s particularly bad. She turns and compares it to Suletta. Just as she thought, it would look great on her. If only it didn’t expose so much skin around the shoulders and back, that is.
Suletta gapes, clearly at a loss as to what to say. Miorine deflates, knowing it was never meant to be. Suletta is probably thinking of how to turn Miorine down for at least this particular dress. Miorine isn’t stupid, she knows that there’s clearly a reason she’s only caught the scars in passing and hasn’t ever had it brought up.
“Miss Miorine,” Suletta breathes. Miorine blinks open her eyes, tilting her head. “It’s beautiful.”
“It is,” she agrees with a nod. She lowers her hand and begins to turn back to the closet. “But don’t worry, I know it would never work.”
“W-what, why!?” Suletta cries out, stumbling forward and placing a hand on Miorine’s arm to stop her. Miorine halts, surprised. She turns her head back to Suletta with a confused expression.
“Uh, the shoulders?” she explains, almost dumbly. She gestures at the clear lack of material around the back. “It would expose your entire upper back.”
Suletta blinks, her face blank. They both wait for a fragile moment, waiting for the other to speak. Miorine’s arms go slack.
“Uh,” Suletta begins smartly, clearly confused. “And?”
“Uh,” Miorine parrots, just as smart. She raises an eyebrow incredulously. “It would…expose your scars?”
Suletta blinks a few more times, clearly not quite comprehending. Miorine huffs out something unbelieveing. Did Suletta seriously not even consider that? How? She seemed careful enough to leave them covered most of the time.
“Oh,” Suletta says then, causing Miorine to be thrown even further into disbelief. She seriously didn't get it. “Ah, Miss Miorine?”
“Yes, Suletta?”
“I wouldn’t mind.” Miorine is the one blinking rapidly now, taken aback. Of all the things, that is certainly not one she was expecting. “Not if it was with you.”
Miorine reels, bowing her head and bringing her free hand up to hold her forehead. She cannot believe this is happening. Seriously? Does Suletta still not get it?
“Suletta,” Miorine breathes, waiting for Suletta to nod in acknowledgement. “This dress is going to expose the scars on your back.”
“Okay,” Suletta accepts easily. There’s not even a consideration in her mind about it.
“And you’re just…okay with that?”
“Sure. As long as you’re there beside me.”
Simply the idea does not even begin to compute in Miorine's mind. She has no idea what Suletta’s trying to tell her. She doesn’t mind revealing that imperfection to the world? And for what? Because Miorine will be "beside her?"
“Here,” Miorine says, thrusting her hand forward. Suletta jumps slightly but obligingly steps away and lifts her own hands to accept the dress. “Put it on.”
Suletta nods and no more words are exchanged between them. Miorine turns around and faces the closet, crossing her arms and tapping her foot impatiently. Once Suletta puts it on, Miorine’s sure she’ll understand why she can’t wear this dress. She’s just not vizualizing it or something.
She’s not understanding.
There’s an extended rustling of feet and clothes as Suletta clearly struggles to get the dress on behind Miorine. Faintly, Miorine wonders if Suletta has ever really worn a dress before. She doesn’t know what life’s like on Mercury, and she hasn’t seen Suletta wear anything but her uniforms before.
There’s a beat of silence. “Erm, M-Miss Miorine?” Suletta asks, her voice timid. Miorine grunts in response, raising a hand to show she’s listening. “I need help with the back.”
Miorine sighs. See, this what she was talking about. Suletta hasn’t even considered the ramifications of wearing this dress at all. She has no idea at all. Maybe she’s never worn a dress before at all, and just doesn’t understand that the shoulders are literally completely uncovered.
Miorine turns around.
“Oh my stars,” she gasps, her hands jumping up to hide her mouth. Suletta turns her head, locking eyes with Miorine’s wide, shaking ones. She tilts her head in the corner of Miorine’s vision, but Miorine can’t do anything to take her eyes off of Suletta’s back.
“Hey,” Suletta says softly, smiling. “You’ll make me feel self-conscious.”
Miorine takes a shaky step forward, and then another. She reaches a cautious hand out, hovering at the zipper of the dress but unwilling to go any further. Her breath hitches.
Suletta’s entire back is covered in scars.
There’s a big one right in the middle, a circular thing that spirals outward and makes it look like Suletta’s skin is falling in on itself, centering towards the small of her back. Miorine can’t even begin to guess at what might have caused it, what with the other jagged scars and plaques on top of it and the various patches of discolored skin that look out of place on top of it all.
Some of them are long and reach across the entire expanse of her back, vicious and uneven from point to point. Some of them are wickedly thin and look like they cut deep. Some look like burn marks, some look like puncture wounds.
Miorine holds back the tears that she can feel threatening to spill. She doesn’t even know why she might be crying. This is normal in their lives. Space is a harsh environment.
But there’s something about genuine, sweet little Suletta hiding a rough expanse of blemishes and wounds underneath the back of her uniform coat that makes Miorine feel things. She chalks it up to simple worry.
Suletta just had a rather insane fight against Elan not too long ago. One that Miorine was worrying all the way through. This is much the same, is it not?
It doesn’t feel the same.
Miorine’s fingertips press against Suletta’s back. Suletta yelps slightly and jumps, making Miorine retract her hand immediately. Do they hurt? Has she just hurt her Suletta?
“I’m sorry,” Miorine says instantly, looking up at Suletta. Suletta’s mouth is parted in surprise and her eyes are wide, but she softens and smiles a second later.
“Go ahead,” Suletta says, folding her arms in her lap and scooting back to give Miorine easier access. Miorine lets her held breath out, reaching back up with her hands gingerly.
She presses her hands against Suletta’s shoulder blades, letting them rest there for a moment. She doesn’t know what to do, she’s just operating completely off of instinct here.
“Why?” Miorine croaks, her voice cracking halfway through. She clears her throat, forcing a deep breath through her lungs. “Where did all of these come from?”
“Mercury is a hostile planet,” Suletta explains, a note of sadness in her voice. “The Sun is harsh and the ground is harsher. Most of our time is spent beneath the surface, where impacts and quakes can destroy everything at a moment’s notice.”
“But these are…” Miorine trails off. She ghosts her hands up and brushes away the sides of the dress, pulling it away to get a good look at the entire expanse of scars. It’s not enough. She can still see how several of the thicker ones trail down towards Suletta’s hips, disappearing into the fabric of the dress.
“We’re taught to keep our backs to the sun at all times,” Suletta continues softly. “The refraction panels and filter glass do well enough, but if one fails or breaks, it often takes weeks before that location is safe again. If it happens somewhere particularly important, as it often does, we have no choice but to turn our backs and endure it.”
Miorine swallows thickly, her fingers tracing over the swirls of cuts and healed bruises. She can’t even begin to imagine it. She can’t believe it, even though the proof is right in front of her. Suletta is even walking her through it.
“These are all from radiation and heat?” Miorine asks, disbelieving. Suletta laughs and shakes her head lightly.
“No,” she clarifies. “The quakes on Mercury can get particularly bad if you’re underground at the time they happen. A lot of those scars are from falling rock and debris.”
“Suletta,” Miorine breathes sadly. She’s beginning to pick the scars out. The central one was clearly some sort of piercing that was exposed to radiation before it healed. Some of the jagged ones look like they could come from rubble, some of the small ones from sharper objects falling in a quake. The discoloration is clearly from heat bleaching, the burns clearly from the hot Sun.
They should be past this. They are a space-faring species. Why would Suletta’s spacesuit not protect her? Why would she have to endure this?
“We don’t really have any funding on Mercury,” Suletta says, bowing her hands and idly fussing with her fingers. “A lot of our equipment is outdated and most of it isn't even made for Mercury. But we use what we’ve got! Even if that’s a decades old suit that can’t filter all the gamma radiation.”
“Is this why?” Miorine asks. She brushes a thumb against one of the scars, feeling the ridges that have formed around a wound that hurt Suletta. Hurt her Suletta. “Is this why you want to build that school?”
“Partially,” Suletta chuckles. She leans forward, the muscles of her back stretching and warping the scars as she moves. They’re a part of her. “We need funding. We need people. Mercury is a nice place, really it is. It just needs a little more help.”
Help that no one in the solar system is giving to them. Miorine knows for sure her deadbeat of a father isn’t doing anything about the conditions on Mercury. He’s not even doing anything about the conditions on Earth.
Miorine lets her hands fall without another word.
She grabs the sides of the dress and pulls them around, lining them up with the zipper. Then she pulls the zipper up, closing the dress slowly. Her hands linger at the top, brushing against some of the scars left exposed.
Suletta gets to her feet gingerly, hoisting the skirt of the dress up and moving around a bit. Miorine guides her to a standing mirror in the corner of the room, letting her ooh and aah at her reflection. Suletta turns to Miorine with a blinding grin, a gush of thanks on her lips.
Miorine steps up and reaches around Suletta, grabbing at the top of the dress and fussing at it, covering the worst of the mottled skin. Her arms linger for a breath too long.
“It’s okay,” Suletta says, stepping forward into Miorine’s arms and winding her own around her waist. Miorine stiffens. “I’m not ashamed of them, y’know. They’re as much a part of me as my hair or my limbs. They’re a part of life on Mercury. So what if some aristocrats see them? Let them know.”
Miorine lets herself relax, placing her head in the crook of Suletta’s neck and tightening her arms around her shoulders. She nods mutely, accepting Suletta’s words.
Suletta is her groom. Miorine should be proud of that. She should be proud of every part of that.
And if she presses a soft kiss against the marrs of raised skin rising up around Suletta’s shoulder, well…who could say?
When Miorine stands in front of all those aristocrats a few days later, asking them for their support and financial investments, she is only partially thinking about saving Suletta. When she bows in front of her father and begs him to invest, her mind is not on just the repercussions of failing to get Suletta out of this situation.
Suletta comes from a harsh, storied past, this much Miorine knows. Someday, she will have to return to the hostile place that made her past so difficult. When she does, Miorine wants her to have a good suit.
Miorine wants Suletta to found that school. A little money to siphon out now and invest later would make that so much easier.
“When do you leave again?” Suletta asks for the fifth time.
Miorine groans, her head pounding at answering the same thing over and over again. “Tomorrow morning,” she says with a strained sigh. “I’ll be gone for 16 days and 12 hours, but Aerial will be with me so you have nothing to worry about. You’ll take care of the greenhouse while I’m away, so don’t forget how to do it. I’ve left instructions on the desk there just in case you need them.”
Suletta hums happily, wrapped in Miorine’s arms. “Thank you,” she says, leaning her head back into Miorine’s chest. “I just like hearing you say it.”
“Well I don’t like repeating it,” Miorine grumbles, scrolling through the messages on her student notebook. She may be complaining out loud, but inside she really is quite comfortable, curled up on her bed with Suletta in her arms.
“Sorry,” Suletta says, but she doesn’t sound very apologetic. Miorine rolls her eyes and rests her chin on Suletta’s head. She tries not to think about what this means for them, what the ramifications of cuddling like this might be. They still haven’t made any solid claims on their relationship, after all.
But Miorine’s too busy to give them a label and Suletta’s too afraid to take any steps without a guide. They’re stuck in a standstill for now, so these quiet moments in the time leading up to the dead of night are all they have. Miorine brushes her thumb against the back of Suletta’s hand, burying her breath in her hair.
Really, all things considered, Miorine should not be relaxing like this right now. She has to get up relatively early tomorrow morning to set everything up for her trip and she’s been completely swamped with work recently. It’s not like it suddenly let up and she has time for this now. She’s staying up with Suletta because they have no other option if they wanted to even see each other before she left, but even still Miorine can only think about work.
“Hey,” Suletta says, bending her head back and reaching her hand up. She caresses Miorine’s cheek, the touch tender and carrying meaning that neither of them can even begin to approach. “Stop worrying so much. We can handle things while you’re gone.”
Miorine sighs again, bending her head down and resting her eyes on Suletta’s shoulder. “It’s not that,” she says, dropping her notebook and wrapping her hands around Suletta’s waist. Suletta just chuckles and shifts to get more comfortable. “I’m…I’m…”
What Miorine wants to say is “I’m not going to see you for 16 days.” She wants to tell Suletta that she’ll miss her.
Instead, Miorine chickens out, “I’m sorry to take Aerial away from you for so long.” Suletta laughs softly, music to Miorine’s ears.
“That’s okay,” Suletta says. “It’ll make me happy, knowing you’ll be safe.”
“Hmph, safe,” Miorine mumbles quietly to herself, Suletta making no indication she can hear her. “Lot of good Aerial did for you on Mercury.”
“Hm?” Suletta hums, blinking. “Did you say something?”
“No.”
“Oh, okay.”
Miorine presses a secret kiss against Suletta’s shoulder blade. She’s never been able to tell if Suletta could feel them, but neither of them have ever talked about it before. They’re little pockets of feeling that Miorine allows herself, but she can’t even share them with Suletta. With the one they’re meant for, her groom.
But that’s okay. Miorine can afford this much. She doesn’t need anything more than these quiet moments.
Miorine’s arms snake back around, retreating and then pressing against Suletta’s back. Miorine’s careful and slow, taking her time to reach a hand down and grasp the hem of Suletta’s shirt, the other one meandering up her skin. Suletta lets out a long breath, her body shivering in response.
“Sorry,” Miorine apologizes, knowing her hands are cold. Suletta shakes her head and leans back again.
“It’s colder on Mercury,” she whispers.
Miorine chuckles, her other hand joining the first in their journey across Suletta’s scars. She doesn’t need to see them to know what each one looks like, has no need to see where one ends and another begins. Miorine has mapped Suletta’s back time and time again, learning about each scar individually.
She knows what each one looks like, what each one feels like. She knows which Suletta remembers getting and which seemed to appear randomly one day. She knows what caused those ones Suletta remembers, and she has ghosted her hands over each one dozens of times.
It’s intimate, how this goes by. Neither of them acknowledge that aspect of it though, instead finding other things to talk about or consider as Miorine simply feels Suletta’s back, their bodies wrapped together. Miorine smiles through it, placing her head back on Suletta’s shoulder and feeling her breathing through the taut muscles of her back.
They don’t need labels or acknowledgements of what they are or could be. For now, this is enough.
Their days are busy and their lives are hectic. They have lofty goals and far-flung dreams. They have no time for each other, but even so they make some anyway. Maybe they’ll never find the time, but for now Miorine is content to let it go, her feelings drifting off into an ether of unknowing.
So Miorine’s hands drift from scar to scar, tracing their outlines and following their patterns. She whispers with Suletta through the night, reminding her how to take care of the greenhouse properly and what needs to be done for the company while she’s gone. She talks about Aerial and the future of GUND technology and her lousy father.
And all throughout it, Miorine is wondering about the scars on Suletta’s back and the story of a girl that burst into her life with no warning. She wonders if that girl stole her heart.
Suletta reaches down, the blood drifting from her fingertips and floating through the thin air around them. Her suit is soaked in the blood she just fell into, but even still her smile is plastered to her face. Her eyes are bright like she didn’t just kill someone.
Like she didn’t just murder someone without a second thought.
Miorine doesn’t recognize this girl. She doesn’t see her as the same girl with the scars from Mercury and the stories of making space a better place. She doesn’t see the girl with a grimace from the memory of the suffering from the quakes or the girl who’s felt the pain of the searing Sun.
She doesn’t see the girl who understands what it means to hurt. What it means to die.
What it means to kill.
She doesn’t see Suletta.
“Muderer.”