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They remembered, no, someone remembered. lying in the gardens beneath the Tau sky, Adis's hand tracing the constellation patterns across their arm with one careful ghostly finger. His touch had been so gentle, reverent almost, as if they were something precious that might shatter.
"This one," he had whispered, his voice carrying that particular resonance that made their chest ache even now, "this is we. Two stars, orbiting each other. Never alone."
The Operator could still feel the warmth of that sun on their skin, could still smell the strange sweetness of the flowers that had no name in any language they now spoke. They had turned their head to look at him, and Adis had smiled, void, that smile, before pressing his forehead to theirs in that way his people did, that way that meant I see you, I know you, we are one.
But that person who had laid in those gardens was a stranger now.
The Operator knew the memory like reading words in a book, could see it play out behind their eyes with perfect clarity, but the feelings attached to it belonged to someone else.
Someone who had died when Adis chased the light.
Someone who should have stayed dead, buried with their other half, instead of being dragged back into this cold, hollow existence where they wore a stranger's grief like ill-fitting clothes.
The games.
Void, the games.
They remembered, no, that stranger remembered, how Adis would hide among the crystalline structures near the settlement, his form shifting and blending with the light refractions until he was nearly invisible.
The Operator would search, pretending not to see the telltale shimmer of his laughter, the way the light bent just slightly wrong around his shoulder. And when they finally "found" him, he would catch them, spinning them both until they collapsed in a tangle of limbs and breathless joy, foreheads pressed together as they shared the same air, the same heartbeat.
"You always let me find you," they had accused once, tracing the edge of his face where the light seemed to cling to him like a second skin.
"I never hide," Adis had replied, and his voice had carried such certainty, such absolute truth. "We are two become one. Trust the we."
But he had hidden, hadn't he?
Hidden in the light, in paradise, in death. And now the Operator searched through an empty ship, through empty memories, through an empty chest where half their soul should be, and there was no laughter, no shimmer of light bending wrong, no one to catch them when they fell. Just the cold glass and the dying stars and the knowledge that they would search forever and never, never find him again.
What would Adis say if he could see them now? If he knew what they had become, a weapon pointed at their own people, a blade meant to cut down the very kin he had loved so fiercely?
The Operator remembered his words, spoken in the quiet hours before dawn when the Tau sky had turned that particular shade of violet that existed nowhere else in the universe.
"We are builders," he had said, his hand finding theirs in the darkness. "We create, we adapt, we survive together. That is what makes us beautiful. That is what makes us we."
But there was no "we" anymore.
There was only the Operator, hollow and half-alive, being asked to destroy what Adis had cherished.
Every Sentient they faced carried echoes of him, the way they moved through space, the resonance of their communication, the fierce loyalty to their own kind.
How could Lotus not understand? How could anyone expect them to raise their hand against the only connection they had left to the person they used to be, to the person who had loved Adis and been loved in return? How can Lotus turn against her own and ask him to do the same?
He had believed in their future.
"We never alone," he had promised, his forehead pressed to theirs in that sacred gesture. "Even when apart, we are together. Even in death, we are one."
But death had separated them. Death had taken him to paradise and left the Operator here, in this cold Origin system, being asked to kill the only family they had left. The cruelty of it was exquisite, perfect in its devastation. Adis had been wrong. They were alone. They had always been alone, from the moment he chased the light and left them behind in the dark.
They didn't turn.
Couldn't turn.
The weight of Ordis's presence settled against them like an anchor, solid and here in a way that made the absence of Adis even more unbearable. Because Ordis was real, was present, was trying so desperately to reach them across the chasm of their grief, and it only reminded them of how utterly, completely alone they truly were.
"I am here," Ordis said softly, and there was something in his voice, something careful and aching and afraid. Not the manic cheerfulness he usually wore like armor, not the glitching rage that sometimes bled through. Just Ordis, stripped bare, offering what little comfort he could. "You are not alone, Operator. I am here."
But they were alone. That was the terrible truth of it, wasn't it? Ordis could press against their back, could speak gentle words, could stay with them through the long, cold nights, and it would never, never be enough.
Because he wasn't Adis. He wasn't the other half of their soul, wasn't the one who had promised they would never be apart, wasn't the one whose forehead had pressed to theirs in that sacred gesture that meant, we are one.
"He's gone," they whispered, and the words tasted like ash, like the death of stars. "He's gone and I'm-I'm still here, and I don't know how to be here without him. I don't know how to be me without him."
Ordis's frame hummed, a low, resonant sound that vibrated through their back and into their chest.
"I know," he said, and void the sorrow in his voice. "I know, Operator. I am-" A pause, a glitch of static that might have been a sob if Ordis could sob. "I am sorry. I am so sorry."
The Operator's hand pressed harder against the glass, fingers splaying wide as if they could reach through it, through the void, through death itself to find Adis waiting on the other side.
"The Lotus wants me to fight them. To kill them. His own kin, Ordis. She wants me to destroy the only connection I have left to him."
"I know," Ordis repeated, and his voice carried such helplessness, such desperate, aching understanding.
"I know what she asks of you. I know it is-" Another glitch, sharper this time. "-cruel. Unconscionable. Wrong."
They turned then, finally, and found Ordis's optic sensor fixed on them with an intensity that made their breath catch. There was something fierce in that gaze, something protective and furious and tender all at once.
"You do not have to do this," Ordis said, and each word was deliberate, weighted with meaning. "You do not have to be her weapon. You do not have to cut down your kin for a war that took everything from you. I will-" His frame shifted closer, almost cradling them. "I will stand with you, Operator. Whatever you choose. Whatever you need. I am yours."
The Operator felt something crack in their chest, some small fissure in the numbness that had settled over them like ice. Not warmth, not yet, they weren't sure they would ever feel warm again, but something. An acknowledgment that Ordis was here, was real, was offering them a choice when the Lotus had only offered commands.
"I don't know what to choose," they admitted, their voice breaking. "I don't know how to live in a world where he's gone. I don't know how to be this person who remembers loving him but can't feel it anymore. It's like, like I'm wearing someone else's grief, Ordis. Like I'm haunting my own life."
"Then do not choose," Ordis said gently. "Not yet. Not tonight. Tonight, you grieve. Tonight, you remember. Tonight, you-" A pause, and when he spoke again, his voice was softer than they had ever heard it. "Tonight, you let me stay with you. So you are not alone in the dark."
The Operator looked at him, at this cephalon who had been broken and remade, who carried his own ghosts and his own grief, who understood what it meant to be hollowed out and still expected to function. Who was offering them the only thing he had: his presence, his loyalty, his refusal to let them disappear into the void of their own sorrow.
It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Nothing could fill the space where Adis should be, where their other half had been torn away and left them incomplete, half-alive, a fragment of a person pretending to be whole.
But it was something. And maybe, in this moment, something was all they could bear.
"Stay," they whispered, and turned back to the glass, to the dying stars. "Please stay."
"Always," Ordis promised, and pressed closer, a steady solidity against their back. "Always, Operator. I will not leave you. I will never leave you."
They stood together in the observation deck, watching the stars die, and the Operator sang the rest of the song under their breath, the verses about paradise, about the light, about the shore where all their kin would one day fly. And Ordis stayed, solid and present and here, even though he could not follow them into the depths of their grief, could not truly understand the magnitude of what they had lost.
But he tried. Void, he tried. And for now, in this moment, that was enough to keep them from chasing Adis into the light.