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“It was you, wasn’t it?” Ikora eyes him firmly, insisting she can see the truth without asking for it.
“I have no clue of what you’re talking about.”
“Daffodils and baby’s breath wrapped in a bouquet.” Tied up in satin wrapper, Ikora remembers, the blossoms delicately nesting in lilac tones, sitting at her door. Sunlight beamed onto its colors, making them stark to her eyes. “I cannot think of someone else surprising me with flowers other than you.”
Lodi grins at his desk and twirls his pen between his fingers. His eyes are always more honest in the presence of her figure, she notices. He is always someone else with her.
“They would look really good at the window near your bed,” he says, and she feels herself flutter.
The other spring, it is peonies. Ikora places it atop the main table she hardly ever used for dinner, transparent glass vase and water. It contrasts with the entire room. A soft reminder.
Lodi’s fingers slide upon its pink petals by the night, believing Ikora would not see him so late. Needn’t a question then, it is a self-accusation.
“Keep decorating my apartment,” she says in his ear, standing behind him, chest against back, “and I might believe you want to live with me.”
“So we can share our nightmares together?” He asks, picking up her hand to envelop his torso. “Eight entities might also want to sneak in unsupervised and have a talk with you.”
Ikora presses herself on Lodi. Her Light maneuvers itself in the schisms of his atoms, and his atoms make themselves a primordial magnet to the Gardener’s secrets. “I can handle all of them.”
“Of course you can,” he says with humour, “but I don’t share. Not with them.”
“Explain that to IX. I’d like to see you try.”
A little soft rumble of a chuckle, one of her favorites.
“They have a pass,” he justifies. “I mean, IX was the one to point out the blue hydrangeas. They insisted that it would fit your collection of plants outside, but I said—” She sees the reddening of his ears and the hitching of a breath. “I enjoy the labor of making something for you, even if it's so simple and short-lived.”
They slowly entangle within each other, matters wishing to become one mere body.
“I love everything you give to me.” Though deep down she wants to say: listen to IX more often—they have good ideas and ephemerality frightens me no more.
Greenery takes on warmer shades this end of season. Warmth comes in, fluttering, painting trees as one would endear nature in its vast array of colors, from soft to hard, from elegant to harsh.
Lodi picks an open blossom from its downwards flight and places it over Ikora’s ear. Their conversation about the reframed City politics comes to a halt, and heat peppers across her cheeks. The white ipe flower brings a rather ethereal contrast as she looks at her own reflection in a mirrored surface of the nearby establishments; though, of course, she too notices the tenderness of his gaze: complete adoration written in lines without fear of being known.
She tells him to not pick a branch, because she doesn’t have space left in her house. He laughs. Gifts her lilies instead.
A small vase of jasmines scents her entire main office. It reads, right beneath it: “I might lose spring on Earth this year with all the diplomatic work out here on Kepler, but that won’t mean I will leave you unattended. Hope this cheers you up.”
Sometimes they dream together. It’s one of the few good benefits gained by being the Nine’s chosen.
They dive across the milky way, one moment in a boat as the ones in the old, ruined Venice, and another by their palms. Matter and dust waves through space, and they float, float away—ending up tiptoeing Andromeda, swirling around its stars and enveloping vessels of unconditional, eternal and timeless life around gases that coat them like silk. Two laughters echo on, out into the emptiness. Jumping from galaxy to galaxy, to nebulae, dressing in vibrancy and own made-up fashion, dancing without rhythm.
When it's time to go, he takes her to a long-dead planet. There is no sorrow but glee in his features she can’t touch, but see, and know—because she knows him enough and so does he, dragging her down to the graveyard of a civilization by his arms and into the growing nature of what was once grey and dull and lifeless. An ecosystem rebirths in a spur, and it smells like Light in here.
“I want you to know this, Ikora,” his words come in thoughts; first are his feet to land, then hers, where she feels the Gardener’s kind motherhood developing this place with love, “this is how far the Light has been reaching our universe. No end is ever eternal.”
Her throat gets tight. Tiny ivory buds sizzle in iridescence beneath her touch.
“How long have you been aware of this?”
“Since I was not myself,” he conveys, leaning down, watching a bud open its hollow eye. “I roamed this entire dimension, from the tip of my finger to my wrist, and promised myself I would take you out to see what I have seen.”
Petals walk serenely over her hand when she reaches out, letting it discover its new world.
“Thank you,” her words waltz across the winds, the swirling clouds above, and the great star that’s tugged into the gravity of this planet, claiming itself as its new sun of a new dawn.
“Oh, don’t think it’s over.” His shape enshrouds her own as they sit, watching pink-gold in full glory across the horizon. “There is so much out there…”
The use of ‘you’ isn’t exactly aimed at a specific person. When the morning comes and sunlight hits her arched back, a warm breeze provoking a pair of curtains to brush against her skin, Ikora says: “Good morning you too,” even when no physical ear is around. When grass caresses her ankles and wind pronounces a serene hum, hinting a glimpse of sulphur, she says, “What secrets do you want to share?” When poukas loom beside, swirling at her head like a crown and singing memories to her, she says, “You sound very kind today.”
As they’re surrounded by the children of this new generation, one who was born late enough to know stories of the Traveler as the life-giving deity hanging weightless but protective overhead, a fruitbearing tree shivers. Small blossoms fall, one or two or three without their complete ring of petals. Kids try their luck by catching them midair, as Ikora remembers Lodi doing the same a few years ago, and some promise to give it to their mothers and fathers and grandmothers, too, even newborns siblings; and Lodi, the teacher who crouches in the middle of this little cluster, encourages this act of love as one to be reminded forever.
Of course, he looks behind his shoulder to say that. Ikora only feels the soft ache of his gaze before knowing it is for her; too drawn to daylight slithering between leaves and branches, too thoughtful of the scent of the Light—now quite distinguishable to her—but aware this is not of its doing.
“Are you dating the Vanguard Commander, Mr Lodi?”
And of course, too, the kids’ curiosity draws her to the crowd, and she refrains the awkward grin as Lodi’s face gets pink.
“T-That’s, uh—that’s a long story to tell you all, but,” he sighs, the same sigh he has each time he speaks of her, and admits, “yes, I am.”
A massive bunch of questions and commentaries come instead, and he tries settling those down by making them focus on the class trip around the City. Yet, Ikora’s sense of humor has not died after another halted attempt of extinction: she picks a peachtree bud—the single one to fall exactly on her hand—reaches out behind him and places it over his ear.
“I will return to my office,” she says as a starry gaze lands on her. “See you later.”
Indeed, the smell of orchids persisted. Lying on the bed and leaning her face close to his, Ikora wants to ask: does this still feel like home to you?
But Lodi squirms, and hides in the crook of her neck. Sometimes she thinks she sees the dried scars of his blind eye take the same blue intensity as before.
Ikora holds him tighter. If she needs to make an effort, then she will; although often it is him who does a better job in emphasizing this sentiment right into her swelled and far mellowed heart.
They glide across the rings of Saturn with caution before sailing off towards the nearest cluster of rocks. Metaphorical feet jump from one to one, hers before his, both hands held so they would have the joy of hurling asteroids across the deepest corners of this vast cosmic ocean without the fear of falling. From this cluster forms a rain, and out of the rain comes the wishes children make beneath a beautiful infinite sky. One does not ask who creates them, instead, only demands—and a little secret of theirs very few would ever know: the act of creation is one they love partaking in.
When they tire of it, Lodi shows her the shores of endless white sand he has walked into. Castles and fortresses are built. It dissipates with the even motion of time applied into this plane, and Ikora only tries again to prove a singular point that matters little here. He cares, however, and always helps. They wander too close to the edge. She finds pearls and motes as small as glitter; and finds, too, delicate asters buried by the currents that lasted, and lingered, and coursed a silent palingenesis.
“I used to tether myself to them,” it is conveyed in this thin line binding shape and matter and thought, “so I knew where and when to return.”
“You already did,” it is relayed, softer, “so why keep these?”
Two pairs of palms find the bud as if they held the lifeline of a whole breathing planet.
“Haven’t had the heart to do otherwise.”
But Ikora had, and it is not because she knew the line between the past and the present and the future, the latter impossible to be foreseen through Prismatic lens, but because eternality can be far from this poison-drenched truth; it could too etch the heart in its echoing thrums through the large expanse of reality as it is.
So she walks out where shore finds the prospect of unborn stars, and places the aster upon the waves.
That girl will live on forever, so the sweet memories of once-been.
Ikora has always paid attention to Lodi’s appearance across the seasons, but this time, it strikes her tenderly: wrinkles have drawn more lines by his eyes and forehead, beard has grown, getting slightly thicker than when they first met, and his hair has white-grey strands by its corners, not shying between black waves. If she looks at the mirror of his oak eyes, she’d find age has enveloped them in synchronicity. And though she is the only one with the clear certainty that death will not arrive by her side, he too has been suspended by the Nine’s whims, and this same death will have a quite long run to find him unless he missteps and finds it by himself first.
But, no, Lodi is so careful.
As careful as the way his palms are placed on her face, thumbs crossing the same wrinkles, brushing beauty marks, roaming beneath her lip. Constellations of Light on her cheeks are treaded by his gaze. On her body is as well—how in the dark of the night in an even warmth, their physical shapes are endeared by beyond, and are as scintillating as the sky where they not so long had thrown meteorites for mere entertainment.
Also—there was a bouquet out there, wasn’t it? That’s why Lodi knocked in.
Ikora will care for it soon enough. Just, well, not now.
“You don’t need an excuse to see me,” she says, walking alongside him over the City streets, “the people are my priority, but it doesn’t mean I cannot spare some time for you.”
He grins, and touches her lower back. It’s funny to remember in clear colors how they have stepped these same stone tiles over and over again, after and before the incident, and how Ikora remembers perfectly: the secrecy they had to uphold because none knew what consequence there’d be in this relationship going public. Now, Lodi has just gifted her a rose, and she has just kissed his cheek in return. Of course he had a cheesy joke about “a flower for another flower,” but, oh, if that didn’t make Ikora be caught in flutters all inside her chest.
“Don’t get mistaken, baby. I actually just wanted to see how you make the EAZ float.”
She playfully slaps his arm. He pretends to be offended, but there’s nothing more between them that can blur true meanings and the small, imperceptible suggestion of a laughter.
Once she stops, she realizes the small garden her apartment has turned into. Brief memories of her to herself, Lodi would say; but he’s yet faraway in this system and Ikora stays, watching over the City, dreaming awake…
Sunlight flickers gold between the leaves and yet-birthing blossoms and petals across the branches and saplings; all right into the wine tapestry and onto the wooden floor. A wind chime is blown into singing. Warmth paces around the living room, dancing around her. Being present for the time alone.
Her datapad beeps. It’s a message. It reads:
>> I know II would try to keep it alive at all costs, but do you think the local Venusian flora would cause harm to the ecosystem of Earth?
She smiles, and taps.
>> I trust her, but I wouldn’t take this risk.
>> Give me a sunflower instead. It suits my house better.
Not so long, her answer comes:
>> Aw, and here I was hoping to surprise you…
Curtains flicker with the spring breeze, and it tickles her cheek, to which Ikora chuckles, playing her fingers across the rim of the hung fabric. “Thank me later.”
They skate across large expanses of frozen oceans from planets who long do not see sunrises. There’s a spin as ice hums beneath; no clear choreography establishes what they do, it merely is what it is because otherwise, what diversion would they create in this land of possibilities? There are still so many galaxies to find, rings made of diamonds, atmospheres to breathe and know the Darkness persists, but too the Light surrounds, and their covenant becomes a symphony of its own, a scent so specific it is exhaled in their very molecules.
But Ikora laughs as Lodi carries her up, and they almost fall. His hold continues to be steady. Their entanglement is as tight as it is well-woven into their making. Shapes parse with glimmers of this ocean—is enlightened, endeared even, something odd and true. Endless circles are carved; some bigger than the previous ones, some smaller, timid. They never let go. They never let go.
One jump across the fine line where the horizon dictates where limited ground and limitless sky stands in nature, and their hands are away from each other. It’s a continuous fall and ascent. Or, in the line of his thoughts she reads by the tip of her fingers, words dancing on her digits, it is the middle ground of the very fine line they darted into. There should be no fear nor expectation. Instead, all that there is, is…
Ikora is caught in the hollow gloom of space, and it’s whispered into her mind, “Do you think I would be so careless?”
They go on and on, shapes of matter landing on sheets of nebulae that catch on them. When she comes again, Light has followed them—a whisk of a scent waddling as a kitty who follows its mother, and that is of the waters they have twirled upon, of the pearls found in the shores of his solitude, of the lands they have visited and are yet to visit; and, too, of the City, who is so, so beyond their sights, but so close to her beating heart.
She rests on him and he envelops her. Light and reminiscing Darkness thrum this particular nebula into the rhythm of their pulses, an emerald green bloom coming bare yet nameless. Still here lies this conjunction, and it amazes her.
She presses her lips to his. There they stay for the while, and linger.
.
.
.
When Ikora awakens, she can only smell the gardens reaching out to her. Vivid as all things are returning to be, filling her with a quiet, still joy.
Daffodils and baby’s breath wrapped in satin paper, delicate yellow and white against lilac. The contrast runs across her fingers as a memory writes itself. “It’s been a while since you last gave me this specific combination.”
“That’s why I did it again,” he says, crossing his legs carefully; they are both hanging on the edge of an airlifted rock, uprooted from its soil, that will soon return to its place. “Tell me, Ikora: how long do you think it was?”
“Hmm.” Ikora considers the nights and days; the elderly gone elder and the children no longer children, younger Guardians becoming veterans and veterans turning worn yet with a glimpse of hope in their eyes; considers the seasons, the victories, the capsules of time where something happened; the pinpointed moment where the Emissary shed his skin and Lodi awakened in her arms after a long decade of hollow, and the world finally returned to its axis when he looked into her eyes for the first time after what felt like eternity. Yet, then, the road is curved and filled with holes, although linear. One thing must’ve ended so this could have begun. And, atop this place of quiet serenity, it seems like a mere blink to one who lived a whole lifetime. So she blinks again and watches the flowers in hand. “A century ago.”
Beside her, Lodi grins. Just as the former Emissary, age has caught so little on him as a Lightless being.
“I take it as a celebration,” she muses, and looks out to the field. Fresh Guardians will arrive in a few minutes; yet, Ikora enjoys seeing the remaining flora bloomed still. When wind catches up on them, a cascade of pastel pink falls down just as a waterfall would. “Louis, I know you are a creative person, but don’t you ever consider that this might bore you eventually?”
“I do, very often.” He leans closer to her. “But I also consider this as the way I count time after being an Emissary. I forget what year we are in, then I try to remember if I got you flowers for spring, and if I’m lucky enough, I will give you something beautiful before it ends or shortly after summer begins. And trust, I think there are plenty of beautiful flowers across the universe to give as a gift.” And he pauses neatly, period upon his speech. Yet…
She unspools it gently. “But?”
“I don’t think I will ever get tired of seeing your face when I do this,” he says, gentler.
It wrings a little smile, even when feelings are far louder. “You say that every year.”
“And I will keep saying this every year.” His arm rests behind her, cheek laying on her shoulder. “You know it’s true.”
Ikora doesn’t dare looking at him—instead, she watches newcomers rush their way in. It’s scrambled, but with the right organization, they make a great score by the bonfire. Still, Lodi’s palm reaches her waist, and he tethers himself to her, as always.
Amidst the match, Ikora writes a mental note: white vase, porcelain; by the window near my bed. It will look good on it.