Stars Dancing [Dreams-To-Lovers Romance]

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I knew all the data points from her recon file, of course. Businesses, employment, known associates, education, public events. But who is the person beyond the public records?

What is in all that space between?

- Sibsil Creed, Stories of Shurwinn, (2778)

One hand, one foot. Balance. Twist. Change arms. Breathe. I am the breath. I am the flow. The breath moves me. The morning flow ended, and I sat down.

"I—I had a nightmare last night," I said to Denten. "And I keep thinking about it, trying to figure out why I'm having nightmares about being attacked now, after all these months. And it helps sometimes to write, but I think, maybe, it will help to talk about it?"

"I'm listening, Ryst," Denten said matter of factly, openly. I could feel him as a steady man next to me; patient, and solid.

"Before. Well, before Darwin tried to kill me. A couple of days before, he came onto me and reeked of alcohol. So I pushed him away. He tried to grab me, but I'm too accomplished for that. And I think that's why he wanted to kill me. And I'm trying to make sense of that. How do you go from wanting to have sex with someone to wanting to kill them? It makes no sense."

"But I think I'm starting to see. It seems like, really, despite all of his success as a surgeon, and all the accolades, he was really insecure. Like he really felt small and insignificant and needed all the attention. Like I needed to all the time help him keep up the act to himself that he was important. That being rejected was intolerable because it was a reminder that he's just a tiny man, and not really adored. And he couldn't stand that. He couldn't stand any reminder that his facade of being the best, the most important— well just any reminder of feeling insecure couldn't be tolerated. So, he had to squash the source of it."

"And is that what we are all doing all the time? We just react to people, lash out? Destroy anything that makes us feel insignificant? We just stomp around crushing everything that reminds us that we are weak?"

"How do we fix that? How do we fix people? It's taken me so long to come to terms with my own insecurities and trauma. And it feels impossible sometimes. Like I'll never be able to sort all this out. It's too confusing. So, how can everyone else change? It's so much work. All the bad dreams, and the panic attacks, and the journaling, and the reflecting about it. It's all well and good to do it at a monastery, but how can real people do that when they are busy with jobs and kids and duties and living? How will anything ever change? We will just go on, smashing about, wrecking each other?"

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"Is that what's wrong with the world? It's the same everywhere in the 9 Galaxies, isn't it? We stopped mass killings and wars centuries ago. We don't slaughter each other because it would be bad for business. So we trade and have prosperity. But what are we really doing? Have we really made any progress?"

"People are still suffering. Suffering everywhere. They're afraid. They're anxious all the time. I know it. I've felt it because I couldn't block it out. It's why I've been so overwhelmed. Everyone, everywhere is insecure all the time. Afraid. Anxious. Everyone is suffering."

"It's not war, but it's not peace."

"How do we have real peace, Denten? Is it even possible in the Known Cosmos? Is the Known Cosmos just broken and refusing to heal because it's too hard? There's something more out there. I feel it. I connected to it. My skull broke open, and I reached into something beyond the Known Cosmos. It's mysterious. Mystical. And something in me changed when I connected to it."

"But how to I get to it? What's beyond the 9 Galaxies? What's stopping us from the tenth galaxy, or the hundredth? What if it isn't a technological breakthrough that we need to leave behind what we have always known? What if the way out of the Known Cosmos isn't by starliner? What if the path is mystical? And what if, here, in the 9 Galaxies we are too broken to find it?"

He reached out, took my hand, put something in it, and left the room.

You'll listen to this song.

Over

and over

and over.

And never tire of it.

Every time

hearing something new.

Collected Unpublished Lyrics

-Sibsil Creed, Stories of Shurwinn (2782)

I opened my hand and saw three bead bags: Silver, White, Black. I was a little annoyed. I had no idea what had just happened, and Denten should have explained it to me. Three more beads made me a Level 9. How could I be a Level 9? I wasn't a Tindin Master yet. I didn't even know what the bead colors meant! Which color was Level 9?

I sighed, and opened each bag, stretching the strings of beads out on the floor in front of me. Lining them up in a row. What had I even been saying? What had come out of my mouth? I had been talking about the world was broken. And something about how we can't leave the Known Cosmos because we're too broken to know that our way out of the 9 Galaxies isn't a technological solution.

It made a strange kind of sense. Centuries upon centuries, and humanity wasn't really different. We hadn't made any large leaps forward. So, maybe I was right? Maybe there was something beyond the 9 Galaxies that we just couldn't reach yet? We all needed to have our heads busted open to experience it?

I laughed to myself. Ridiculous. All of it. Silliness. It dawned on me that I had braided the three strands of beads into a cord. It was kind of similar to the cords of my home world on Starlend, but instead of a twist, I had made a braid—Shurwinn style. I wasn't sure what to do with them, so I stuffed them in my tight tank and went to find my journal so I could record everything I had just said to Denten about finding my way out of the 9 Galaxies and about finding true peace.

Journal

Three new beads. Silver, White, and Black. I'll have to pin Denten down and get him to answer my questions. There's still so much I don't know.

I like it at the monastery. It has been such a great place to get adjusted—adjusted to Shurwinn, adjusted to my new life, adjusted to the trauma, adjusted to the fact that my old life is gone, and it's never coming back. This has been a wonderful place to take the time to slowly walk into something new. But is this forever?

It feels like there's something on the horizon out there, but the sun hasn't come up yet, and it's too dim to see clearly. It just feels so big. I just keep thinking of all that vast space in the desert. Like something is out there waiting for me, but I don't yet know how to find it.

And I don't know how to find him. The man. He's still in my dreams. Like a whisper on the breeze. I'm not giving up.

I didn't give up, Ahtah.