Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

RYST

Strike. Lunge. Bend. Dive. Stretch. Reach. Stand. Breathe. Stand. Breathe. Sit in lotus. Breathe. Can't sit up anymore. I laid back on the dojo floor.

I'd known when we'd come down to the Centre dojo that I wasn't gonna make it through a full session of greeting the sun. It'd only been six months since my last relapse, though, and I hadn't wanted to miss out on the morning sparring.

Ren was playing a wood flute and Peydran was sparring with Euri while Nayth sparred Dwin. Ages fourteen and fifteen, both boys were proficient in Tindin and the skills Nayth had taught them in Flauta and Strith, the martial arts of his two home worlds.

My mind focused on the song coming out of Ren's flute, holding onto it as my body fell further into pain. Everything hurt, and I was too tired to get up off the dojo floor, too weak to move. I don't know how long it was, but I felt two arms intertwine with mine. Dwin lay on my right side and Euri on my left. Their minds were soft, loving presences wrapped around mine.

Their whole lives, their brains had been fully open to me. I'd taught them techniques to protect their minds from me; how to pull a curtain around themselves. They'd obediently practiced when I told them to, but when they were with me, they usually kept themselves wide open.

Now that they were teenagers, they'd found reasons to close their minds to me, but when they laid next to me on the dojo floor, they were warm, comforting presences around my inner self. On days like today, it was impossible for me to put a curtain around my mind to keep myself from merging with them; I was simply too tired and weak to do it.

The boys weren't the only minds merged with mine. I felt a head push against the top of my own head. Ren. Then the strongest mind in the room was just to the left of my scalp: Nayth. I felt another head to the right of mine, but I couldn't feel the mind within that skull: Peydran.

I smiled. My family was lying all around me, the boys next to me, the adults putting their heads against mine, like we were spokes of a wheel. I mentally whispered to Nayth that Peydran should get a picture from the ceiling so we could see what we looked like. I heard a camera shutter from a pad.

Ren sang in a near whisper, "I heard you on the breeze, just like always. I feel how near you are. You are all love and all things. . . ," and his sons joined him in soft harmonies. My heart cracked open and tears leaked out of my eyes. It was the prettiest thing I had ever heard, and I was carried out and away on the harmony of that song. "We'll sing together, for always. . ."

Ren's mind pushed against mine, and I saw something he wanted me to see. He saw me as a crystal river of light, so beautiful and pure, a beautiful symphony in perfect harmony with all that is. But around my brain was a sludge of black, tarry goo that was disharmonious. Discord. There was discordant sound that was a sticky black goo all over me. The black tar was hurting me, and it did not belong in my crystal river of light.

The black tar was not mine. It had nothing to do with me. It was sucking me down and trapping me, hurting me, coating me in a sludge of decay, polluting my crystal river of light. But it did not belong to me. Because I did not belong to it.

I belonged to the other place. The place of home. He saw the crystal river of light separate itself from the black tar, and the tar slid away from it.

Ren, Euri, and Dwin kept singing to me. I felt their song, but I couldn't get up. I couldn't move. I was too heavy. I was stuck in black tarry goo. I felt a metal arm pick me up, and I felt Nayth's back. I was a monkey on my Ahtah.

Nayth walked us slowly up the hill to our casita. Did I hear a flute? Nayth kept walking across the desert. It wasn't hot. It was a cold desert. A tundra. It was frozen. My feet were ice.

Then the air was thick, and it was hard to breathe. The jungle around us was too close, pushing down on us. Nayth kept slowly walking on. Everything was dark, and the air was too thick. It was hard to breathe. I was so weak.

It was snowing. The snow was so deep. Nayth kept walking, crunching through the snow. It was quiet. I liked snow. Snow was always so quiet. The whole world was blanketed in soft, quiet snow, with nothing but the sound of Nayth's footsteps scrunching.

Everything turned grey. It was mercury. Mercury surrounded me and went up my nose and down my throat. Everything tasted like metal.

"Drink Ryst," said a deep voice. Something was in my mouth. I couldn't open my eyes. I was too weak.

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I know, Methela. Drink. I know. Drink.

My lips wrapped around a straw, and I managed to suck something thick and sweet into my mouth and swallow it. It was too sweet. Everything tasted bad. Everything hurt.

Drink it. I know.

I obeyed the voice. I drank it all.

Drink again.

This one was thinner and less sweet. Cucumber and honeydew. I could drink it, couldn't I? I finished it.

Drink again.

I obeyed him. Nayth. I obeyed Nayth. My Nayth. I drank it all. It tasted good. I could move. I wrapped my arms around him. I'm sorry, Nayth.

Don't, Ryst.

I couldn't obey him that time. I cried and felt miserable and sorry and filled with regret that this was the only life I could offer my one and only. A life of pain and suffering and difficulty.

"I don't want to do this anymore," I whispered.

"We'll go home when you're ready," said my beloved.

I could feel Nayth. He was certain. He was solid. He was sure. He had no regret and no remorse. We had chosen each other. We had chosen this life together. We'd keep choosing each other. Darkness was always temporary.

We were figuring it all out, every day, every year. We were almost through the dark.

PEYDRAN

"Yeah," Nayth nodded through my video screen, "I've lost count of the days. Has it been ten? It's still changing landscapes going through her mind, but I can't always see because she gets too disoriented and tired. She fades from my mind sometimes."

"You seem awfully calm about this, Nayth."

He shrugged. "I think she's about to figure it out. I promised her two decades ago that I'd follow her into every dark corner, and that we'd always be okay. And we are."

I shook my head. I had no idea what Nayth meant when he talked like that. How was any of this okay? Ryst was fading. She didn't work much at all anymore. She didn't seem to care about Living Foods or research. She cared about the boys, me and Ren, and Nayth. Nothing else seemed to matter to her.

Nayth chuckled as the sounds of Dwin and Ren cackling echoed through our apartment.

"Dad! Get in here!" Euri demanded. "Dad" meant me. Obviously, Dwinlyn had roped Ren into playing a prank on his younger brother— again.

That was all right. Euri and I would get them back. The itching powder had worked wonders last time. Ren hadn't been able to sit down for a week after that. It also had meant I couldn't touch him for a week, so he'd kept telling me it was my loss, not his, and he'd promised to get me back for the itching powder.

Then he'd sent the kids to my parents for a long weekend. "Happy anniversary, Pey'o," he'd said, handing me a donkey costume. "You're gonna put this on. You're gonna take it up the ass, and you're gonna like it."

I did, and he was right. We'd laughed all weekend, and it was the best anniversary ever.

"You'd better go see what Euri needs," Nayth recommended, and the screen went dark.

Play "Stars Dancing" by Ren Crieve.

RYST

"Am I dying, Nayth?"

Certainty. Humor. My Ahtah thought death was for silly weak-minded people.

I reached up and pushed wet hair away from my face. Wet hair?

Nayth showed me in my mind that he'd helped me shower. I didn't remember that. Had I eaten? He showed me that last night I ate a whole bowl of costamelon, and I'd drunk two glasses of juice through a straw this morning. I didn't remember that.

I remembered walking through a pretty forest on Nayth's back. It smelled so good. Pine trees, all coated with thick snow. Like when I was a little girl in Starlend, cross-country skiing through the pine forests in winter. Crisp, fresh air that smelled of clean pine, and cheeks pink with chill. We'd walked through that forest and had a picnic, hadn't we?

Nayth nodded in my mind. Yes, we'd had melons, and he ate bread with cheddar spread and drank a beer.

Beer? I giggled.

Yeah. It was the last one, my Ahtah said.

Do you see the pink clouds, Nayth? Aren't they beautiful?

Of course, Ryst. They're pretty, and they feel nice, don't they?

Yeah. They feel soft on my brain. Kind of like Ren's music.

What do you want to do, Ryst? Do you want to go into the clouds?

I'm NOT LEAVING YOU, NAYTH CARMIDEE.

Humor. We were a double helix. Confidence. If I wanted to go into the pretty pink clouds, Nayth would go with me.

Is it that simple? I just choose? I just decide to go?

Shrugging shoulders. Confidence. I'd figure it out. Nayth was sitting against the headboard of our bed, and I was between his legs with my back to him as he held me around the waist, pulling me to him. He felt so good. So comforting. I was home with Nayth, just like I always had been.

But I didn't want to be in our casita on Shurwinn anymore. I was tired. I was weak. I was wan and pale and barely there anymore. I wanted those pink clouds.

I sat up and put my right hand over Nayth's heart. It was time to make one last choice. The choice was already made, wasn't it?

My eyes closed. I reached my left hand up to the skylight above us and felt my heart expand out around us. I reached beyond the stars.

"We'll be stars dancing. And love flowing. We'll dance beyond eternity and flow together always," I sang in a voice that did not belong to Ryst Nova. It was the fullness of me. The Vast Ryst. A voice beyond the Known Cosmos rose out of me and my beloved joined me in harmony.

"Two in harmony! More than a chord! None that exists! And so much more! Reach beyond the stars. We'll dance beyond eternity and flow together always. Within you. Within me. All things can be! Within you. Within me. All things can be!"

Light filled me. Laughter filled me. Power surged from Nayth and filled me to overflowing. Everything turned to piercing light and beauty. Nayth and I shredded.

It hurt. It was the greatest ecstasy I had ever known. It was every orgasm we had ever had all at once and every nightmare.

And I saw everything. I understood everything. We saw it all. All that could be. All that we had ever been. And all that we would be. I reached beyond the stars and chose.

We went home.