dejah_thoris | Midnight in the Jeddak's Garden

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Midnight in the Jeddak's Garden

[cont'd from here]

She holds him through the worst of it. Holds him and rocks him gently, her mind racing to come up with some kind of solution, any solution. There isn't one, she knows. She can feel his agony as if it were her own, and in a way, it is now, isn't it? She feels the tears on her cheeks and lets them fall. Grief is the strongest enemy she's ever vanquished.

But she's done it before, and she knows she can do it again.

She doesn't know how long they've been sitting there when she notices a telltale ripple in the air. It's just inches above the wood of her door. It takes a moment to resolve, and before it does, she recognizes the portal and knows where it opens to. She can smell the pimalias and the blessed cool of the moss trees beyond. The night sky above Helium is crystal clear.

Gingerly she urges his gaze up. Her voice is gentle and warm. "Hey. Can you smell that?"

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"Yes," she says. Her gaze follows his.

"You humans are remarkably resilient. Also, stubborn." He can detect a wry amusement in that last observation.

A fond snort.

"So I've heard," he says, before pressing a brief kiss to Dejah's temple.

She leans into the kiss, humming under her breath.

"You really should take in the view of the city while you're here. If you're up to it."

He breathes out.

"Okay." Half to himself. "Lemme just..."

If he can handle looking up at the stars, surely he can handle looking down at the ground. Curtis turns enough to glimpse the expanse beneath them -- and goes still against Dejah, eyes wide.

It's not all fear, though. Or vertigo. Awe sparks anew, like a firework, as he sees the whole of the city laid out beneath them, sparkling like a mirror of the deep, clear sky.

She basks in the wash of awe flowing off of him. This is home to her. She's worked very hard to keep it safe, to keep the legacy of Helium moving forward. To see him take in the beauty and the wonder of the place for the first time, it's gratifying in a way she can't quite express.

First thing to notice, the city itself is perched on top of a promontory, the chasm below providing all the defense they need against a ground assault. She points to a building across the city, rising above the other low structures.

"That's the Hall of Science. It's sister, the Hall of Art stands beside it."

" -- Oh, hey, yeah," he says, once his eyes settle on where she's pointing. After almost two decades of never having to focus on anything more than a car's length away, Curtis still has a little trouble making his eyes work sometimes. "And that's where you work when you're not here, right? The science one?"

"Yes. I'm the Regent of the Royal Academy of Sciences. I am the -- head professor, if you will. I have students who will one day go on to become professors themselves. I also have younger students, but I don't get to spend as much time with them as I'd like."

She lays her head against his shoulder. "I keep rooms above my offices there. They look very similar to my rooms in Milliways."

"Mm." He soaks in the closeness like he's curling up in bed after a long day. "But...no rooms in this building, too?"

What do they do with all the space?

"Well..." She chews on her lip, pondering how best to phrase this. "I am the Jeddak. Technically the whole palace is mine. But my private residence is in the northern wing. After John died, I found it difficult to sleep here, though. So I took to sleeping in my office. And in the way of these things, someone took it upon themselves to make sure I had a proper bed and bath there as well."

"I do still take my meals here. And for matters of state, it's better to entertain here in the Palace. I suppose, in the last few years, I seem to split my time equally between both residences. It would be -- unseemly for a Jeddak to abandon the palace all together."

Curtis makes another soft huh noise.

Six or seven months ago, there'd be so much more swirling beneath that formless syllable -- resignation, bitterness, anger. He'd be thinking of nothing but the excesses of the Front. A whole building to yourself and you still take another room, Jesus.

And maybe there's still a twinge of that, buried deep, but...mostly, what Dejah can feel is a genial that's weird.

Curtis gets not wanting to be in a place that stirs up bad memories. (Considering what happened today, he gets that very well.) It's bizarre, but he guesses if she's got the space, she might as well use it. Like switching bunks with somebody after a breakup or something. And she's not stealing that space from the Tail, so...yeah.

Dejah sighs, her fingertips tracing idle spirals on his chest.

"It seems so extravagant, when I think about it. But I feel comfortable in those spaces. I was raised in this palace. It's my home."

Curtis nods. Quiet: "It's what you're used to."

She doesn't see the extravagance as her due, believing she deserves it just because she's the Jeddak. It just is.

For a brief instant, Curtis doesn't know whether that's worse than aggressively thinking you're always owed the best. She's so used to having this much that she hardly thinks about it at all.

"It's what the people want. A smaller, more efficient palace would make Helium appear... less. I head the council of Jeddaks, and though the other city states are independent, they all look to Helium for guidance. Together, we are building something bigger, something far beyond our petty politics and power trips."

She can hear the tenor of his thoughts. If he is to stay here, he needs to understand. "If they need a strong leader to remind them of that, well... I will keep the palace for what it represents. Strength in peace."

He...guesses that makes sense. Sort of. She's a good leader, beloved by Helium, so of course her people wouldn't look toward a giant palace with jealousy.

She actually gives a shit about the Tail, he said to Edgar once. Just thinking of that makes a new lump rise in his throat.

(But surely they can't just look at her? What she represents? Why should it matter where she lives or what she looks like -- why can't they just focus on what she does?)

He remains quiet and her hand slips down to his waist, hugging him gently.

"I'm sorry. The life of a Jeddak is not a simple one. I wish I could give you a simple life."

He can hear a thread of fear slipping into her voice. She knows he's sure of them, but this? Sometimes this is too much even for her.

Curtis shuts his eyes on a fresh burn of tears. He returns the sideways hug, trying to quell her fear even as he works to figure out what he could say.

In the end, it's what he always seems to say.

"We'll figure it out."

"Yes."

She answers without hesitation, without doubt.

"I love you. I want to make this work. Whatever it takes."

"Same."

He turns to kiss the top of her head. Another tiny burst of wonder fizzes through his words; when he blinks a couple times, the burn in his eyes stops.

"I love you, too."

She hugs him tighter, burying her face against the side of his throat. He can feel her draw in a long, shaky breath, her fingertips clenching in his shirt.

"Maybe we can carve out something simple, for the both of us. Something that's ours and ours alone."

"Yeah," whispers Curtis. His free hand lifts to cover hers. For a moment, he stays quiet.

We have Milliways. He tried that argument once; it wasn't enough.

"There's a thing people used to do on Earth." His brow knits as he works to dredge up the memory. "I think. If they had the money, sometimes they'd get another house somewhere. A small one -- a cabin. Out on a lake or up in the mountains or something, far away from anyone else."

He hooks his chin over the top of her head.

"Maybe we could do something like that here. Just for us."

She doesn't say anything right away, but he can feel her thinking. Turning the idea over in her head.

There's no reason why she couldn't. She even knows a few places that might work. And a few even have nodes nearby. It wouldn't be anywhere near as lavish as the palace. She'd have to tell Kantos where it was, so they could find her if something happened and she was needed. After a long few breaths, she gives a slow nod.

"Yes. That might work. It would be rough. We'd have to put some work into it. But yes. Yes, I believe we could do something like that here."

A true smile finally spreads across Curtis' face. He curls his fingers around hers.

"We don't have to spend all our time there," he says, picking up the shape of her thoughts. "And if you needed to get back to the palace quickly we could...I don't know. Cut through Milliways, maybe?"

A door to Helium showed up in her room. Maybe they could open a door from the theoretical cabin, step through, and open another door on the paalce.

She pulls back only enough that she can look him in the face. "Remember I told you that my bracelet could do other things? Teleporting is one of those things. Your pendant can do the same."

"...Wait, seriously?"

He straightens up. Holy shit, that's useful.

"Well, it's not a simple undertaking. But yes." She gives him a crooked smile, a bit sheepish for not having shared this information yet. "You see, the Thern created -- or more likely, I suspect -- made use of an ancient network of geographical nodes. Coordinates spread all over the planet, and on Earth as well. If you know the coordinates to a place, you can utter a series of syllables and it will transport you there. Though interplanetary travel seems to send a projection -- or a copy, if you will. I haven't a complete grasp of how the whole system works, but I know enough to use it for travel between certain points on Barsoom."

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