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Irene doesn’t have many questions, the night Helen finally tells her about the dreams the gods have plagued her with night after night. Helen isn’t sure what she expected. She had only told a handful of people herself before. Gen, of course, saw it himself; Gen’s father had only nodded, despair in his eyes, and declared they would do what needed to be done. Sophos hadn’t doubted her for an instant, not with his own relationship to the gods so odd and firm and intangible, but he had peppered her with questions about the physical appearance, the temperature at the peak, historical records of eruption, the kind of rock around the site, none of which she could answer because the mountain was just a mountain unless and until it wasn’t, and that was all Helen herself had ever needed to know.
She should have expected more doubt from Irene, she decided, as the other woman sat across from her in grave thought, the pad of her thumb running over the tips of the nails on the same hand. She had asked if Helen knew when this event would happen, and if she was sure it was literal or if there was some hidden meaning in it, then fallen silent. Perhaps Gen had told Irene he had similar ones. Gen didn’t talk to Helen about his nightmares, any of them, and she didn’t know how much he told his own wife. Especially since his own wife starred in some of them. If Sophos had nightmares about her, she wasn’t sure if she could bear to hear them herself.
Helen sat and let her stew, her own thoughts tumbling. The silence would have been uncomfortable even as short as months ago, but they knew each other better now. The space they shared no longer oppressed either of them, but comforted, a moment to rest from a world that always demanded their attention. Eventually, Irene looked up with another question on her lips. “Are you alright, Helen? I can’t fathom watching my country destroyed over and over.”
Taken aback, Helen stared. No one had asked her anything like that yet.
She opened her mouth to reflexively answer she was fine, of course, because it wasn’t anything she could change or prevent, so what good was worrying about it now? Then closed her mouth again, pursing her lips, mulling over Irene’s words. Something didn’t sit right. “I…think you could,” Helen said slowly, her eyebrows furrowed. “You looked your own destruction in the eye every day for years.”
Irene stared at her, something in her face softening. She reached out her hand across the empty sofa cushion, and Helen reached back, taking her hand with a little squeeze, confused at the show of physical support until she realized she’d answered Irene’s question, too.
“If you ever need to talk about it with someone who understands…”
Helen nodded, taking a deep breath, the weight on her chest easing. “I know how to find you.”