Remember That Thou Art
~ this extended scene (~2000 words) takes place between "Ascertain" and "Now/Here" ~
Sabinus's pet had been waiting outside his room for nearly an octan.
He'd ignored her at first, tried to go back to sleep. They'd established protocols long ago for how she was to contact him in case of an emergency, or when she wished to speak to him of anything of importance outside of their usual interactions. But she had been content, in general, to continue letting him do the approaching, content to wait on the sidelines except when ordered otherwise. And even now that he knew he loved her, their habits had not changed.
Yet there she was now, kneeling in the hall, arms wrapped around herself, forehead leaning against the smooth surface of the door -- unaware, it seemed, that he was awake, and monitoring her. He'd wondered at first if she had fallen asleep in that awkward position while deciding whether or not to disturb him. But a quick scan of her vitals had confirmed that she, too, was awake. Had been awake all this time.
He knew her too well by now to suspect her of playing some bizarre game with him. Even so, he could not understand her hesitation.
If something were wrong, she would come to him. If nothing were wrong, she would return to the comfort of her own room.
Wouldn't she?
It was that doubt, gnawing and persistent, that had kept him awake in the end. And that very same doubt that prompted him now, at last, to release the locks with a wave. The door slid open, and she sat back on her heels with a flustered start, peering into the darkness in a clear attempt to locate him.
He paused for a moment to decide exactly how to modulate his voice before settling on a neutral, "Come here."
Still she hesitated, but he did not push her, nor did he bother to sit up. Instead he continued staring up at the ceiling and let her come to some sort of decision of her own as he watched her face on his retinal monitor.
The moment she decided, something in her expression shifted.
She bent over and began to crawl to him on all fours, much as she had that day she first came on board -- only this time, padded cuffs circled her ankles and wrists, and a simple collar rested comfortably around her neck. The arch of her back blanketed beneath her hair and the curve of her dangling breasts roused him -- as did the belt he could see riding over her hips, that he had locked into place himself.
All too soon, she reached her usual place at his bedside and folded herself back into a kneeling position. He shifted onto his side, looking at her in the flesh. But she did not return his gaze. Stared determinedly at the ground.
Despite himself, he stretched out his hand. Patted her, stroking her head, running his fingers through her hair. She did lift her face then, eyes squeezing shut as if savoring his touch.
He let his fingers trail down to cup her cheek. A moment later, she raised her hands, pressing them to his, holding him in place.
For some time she stayed like that.
He felt her breathing begin to slow, unifying with his own. Considered pulling her up into bed beside him. But he did not trust his own control at the moment. Their current game wore more on him than it did on her, he thought sometimes. Certainly he took enough pleasure from her even under their self-imposed restrictions, and the daily rituals they had settled into were something he undeniably looked forward to. Binding her, using her, witnessing her need and frustration -- all of it was an utter delight.
But in the meantime, his own craving grew and grew.
All of her belonged to him. And he wanted it all.
He curled his fingers against her cheek, only half-conscious of his own movement, and she opened her eyes.
"I dreamed that you were dead," she said at last, in her soft low voice.
A nightmare. So that was it. That was all.
It was the first time she'd ever spoken to him of such things.
He'd dreamed the same of her, more than once. Statistically speaking, it was not a scene he would ever have to face in reality. Even if he weren't the man he was, even if they all bundled away into quiet retirement on some backwater planet, the likelihood was that he would die before her. Age meant less these days than it had in ancient times, but the human lifespan was nonetheless limited. Immortality would never be anything more than an illusion.
Still he had dreamed of it. Her body, lying gray and still in his arms. Or in the distance, out of reach, pulled by gravity out of sight forever. Or seized and ripped apart piece by piece, until she was no longer his pet, his little beast, no longer the woman he loved.
Worst of all were the dreams where she was simply gone. Gone, nowhere to be found, no proof that she had ever even existed. And the immensity of solitude, never before troubling, had crushed him with its inexorable finality.
But he did not tell her these things.
Instead, he said quietly, "What would you have done? If you had been too late? If Dulan's bait hadn't been a trick?"
It was a while before she replied.
"I don't know."
He didn't know either, what answer he had hoped to hear. Avenge him? Little hope of that, against a man like Dulan. Allied with Redshirt regardless? Difficult to imagine her with them: an oasis of tranquility amid the slapdash madness. Most likely she would have slipped back into civilian life with help from Andrei and Leen, and lived out the rest of her days in ordinary peace.
But no. However things might have played out, he would be a fool to believe her willing to return to that life. It took a certain madness just choosing to leave, to roam the darkness of space for months and years on end, severed from the rest of humanity save for transitory encounters that faded soon enough back into the endless days of routine.
"I never considered it before."
What would she have done if he had not been the man she hoped for? Had she never considered that? Or was this even what she had hoped to find in the first place? Had she hoped for anything particular in all, when she first came to him?
She must have sensed the subtle change in his mood, or perhaps the same doubts weighed on her, for her hold on his hand tightened.
"I didn't like to think of things that might never come to fruition." She hesitated again before continuing, "Whatever life chose to throw at me, I thought I'd figure out a way to handle it, one way or another."
As she must have done, until now.
"All I knew was that I had to do something. Anything. I didn't let myself think about... failure."
In this, as in other matters, she was different from him. He understood, too, that in admitting this to him she did not seek praise or censure, nor even reassurance.
Rather, because he had asked -- she answered.
"I think," she said then, "I would go mad otherwise."
They were silent again for some time.
Then Sabinus said, "I can't make you any promises. But there's one thing I've known ever since I was a kid: no matter what happens, I intend to die on my own terms."
She bowed her head, squeezing his hand again, so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
"Me too," she whispered.
If her remark surprised him, it was only a momentary surprise. This, too, was something he had long suspected, perhaps understood even longer. She would have never made the choices she had, otherwise.
He was no fool, nor was she. He knew very well that even the manner of one's own death could not be guaranteed, that even the strongest of men could not choose when and how to die. Had seen it proved, time and time again.
But even the weak could choose how to face it.
"Before I met my teacher," she said after a while, "I don't think I ever considered life worth living."
"That's a long time," he said, wondering.
"Mm," she replied.
Then she hesitated yet again, this time in the way she always did when she was gathering her thoughts into words.
"I went through the motions, rebelling in little ways, tamping down on my true self. Despite knowing that I couldn't hold it all in forever, that someday it would all explode. But I didn't care. I owed nothing to the universe. After all, I never asked to be born."
For all her secrecy, she had never been anything but true to him. He knew this. The same way he knew he loved her, the same way he didn't know -- couldn't possibly ever know -- whether she loved him.
It reminded him of something someone had said to him once, long ago, in another lifetime: You make people feel exposed.
The comment had rankled, at the time. Why should he be held responsible for what others felt? For their own doubts and fears? If they desired to live a lie, that was their prerogative. But let them build their own towers, their own walls and fortresses against the truth. He had no interest or desire to be dragged into their muddle of naive fantasies and dreary insecurities.
Only later, older, more experienced, had he begun to understand that there were others who craved the catharsis of exposure, instead of dreading it. But this had rankled him too, in another way entirely. As if by diminishing his existence into abstraction they could prove something about their own...
"Even after she set me free, I wasn't sure. I'd always known what I wanted. But just because I wanted, didn't mean I could have. And I'd spent so long pretending that I didn't know if I could stop anymore."
She needn't have worried, he thought.
She'd told him a little, over time, of the years she spent wandering, the years after she left her old colony and before she came to him. Some of it had surprised him. Some of it had not. He guessed now that it had all been her way of making up for lost time. Of, for once, living her life as she pleased.
Either way, in all her tales she had been no unfamiliar stranger, no unrecognizable character, but unmistakably her. She spoke of pretending, but the truth, he suspected, was simpler, and one he understood all too well.
People looked at her, but did not see her. They saw only what they wished to see.
"You're a terrible actor."
She laughed one of her rare little laughs. "I wasn't sure."
"Well, you are."
"Yes," she agreed, smiling so sweetly at him that he had to look away.
Still irritated by his own reaction to her, he said, "You're released from the contract when I die."
Her voice was soft and low, but unfaltering. "What if I don't want to be?"
"You're the one who wrote it, pet."
He could hear the smile in her voice as she said, "Okay."
Insufferable little beast.
By the time he turned his head back, she had lowered her gaze and composed her expression once more.
He would never fall into the trap of believing that he had tamed her. Deep within her core lurked a wildness that could never be fully extinguished. How had this creature, whose very soul was inimical to authority, ever allowed itself to be subjugated?
Even when he knew the answer, the question would always remain.
He thought often of the past these days. Wondering, always, about the man he might have become, if their paths had crossed earlier. If he would have been capable of accepting her even then, or if he would have thrown her away, unheeding, like a fool. If the hopeless hunger that had driven him all these years would have been assuaged by her presence. By the very knowledge of her existence.
If he would have even noticed her. Recognized her.
If she had never found him, would he have known to look?
"I'm glad I was born," she whispered.
It had never occurred to him as something to be glad about. For him, or for anyone.
He was here. He was alive. He could scream that fact a thousand times over into the void, and no one would ever hear.
But that did not matter.
"Come here," he said, raising the covers and shifting back to make room for her.
She tilted her head at him. Then she climbed up, slowly, carefully, and settled into the hollow of the mattress, shivering slightly at his lingering warmth. He clasped her waist to him, running his fingers briefly over the belt at her hips, the shield between her thighs. Her breasts squashed up against his bare chest, and his cock stirred at her softness, her heat, the fresh fragrance of her hair. She must have felt it too, for her breath hitched, and she tensed ever so slightly, pulse quickening beneath her skin.
But he closed his eyes without another word. There would be time enough to play tomorrow, and the day after, and after that as well.
Tonight, he would hold her, and keep her nightmares at bay.
He'd ignored her at first, tried to go back to sleep. They'd established protocols long ago for how she was to contact him in case of an emergency, or when she wished to speak to him of anything of importance outside of their usual interactions. But she had been content, in general, to continue letting him do the approaching, content to wait on the sidelines except when ordered otherwise. And even now that he knew he loved her, their habits had not changed.
Yet there she was now, kneeling in the hall, arms wrapped around herself, forehead leaning against the smooth surface of the door -- unaware, it seemed, that he was awake, and monitoring her. He'd wondered at first if she had fallen asleep in that awkward position while deciding whether or not to disturb him. But a quick scan of her vitals had confirmed that she, too, was awake. Had been awake all this time.
He knew her too well by now to suspect her of playing some bizarre game with him. Even so, he could not understand her hesitation.
If something were wrong, she would come to him. If nothing were wrong, she would return to the comfort of her own room.
Wouldn't she?
It was that doubt, gnawing and persistent, that had kept him awake in the end. And that very same doubt that prompted him now, at last, to release the locks with a wave. The door slid open, and she sat back on her heels with a flustered start, peering into the darkness in a clear attempt to locate him.
He paused for a moment to decide exactly how to modulate his voice before settling on a neutral, "Come here."
Still she hesitated, but he did not push her, nor did he bother to sit up. Instead he continued staring up at the ceiling and let her come to some sort of decision of her own as he watched her face on his retinal monitor.
The moment she decided, something in her expression shifted.
She bent over and began to crawl to him on all fours, much as she had that day she first came on board -- only this time, padded cuffs circled her ankles and wrists, and a simple collar rested comfortably around her neck. The arch of her back blanketed beneath her hair and the curve of her dangling breasts roused him -- as did the belt he could see riding over her hips, that he had locked into place himself.
All too soon, she reached her usual place at his bedside and folded herself back into a kneeling position. He shifted onto his side, looking at her in the flesh. But she did not return his gaze. Stared determinedly at the ground.
Despite himself, he stretched out his hand. Patted her, stroking her head, running his fingers through her hair. She did lift her face then, eyes squeezing shut as if savoring his touch.
He let his fingers trail down to cup her cheek. A moment later, she raised her hands, pressing them to his, holding him in place.
For some time she stayed like that.
He felt her breathing begin to slow, unifying with his own. Considered pulling her up into bed beside him. But he did not trust his own control at the moment. Their current game wore more on him than it did on her, he thought sometimes. Certainly he took enough pleasure from her even under their self-imposed restrictions, and the daily rituals they had settled into were something he undeniably looked forward to. Binding her, using her, witnessing her need and frustration -- all of it was an utter delight.
But in the meantime, his own craving grew and grew.
All of her belonged to him. And he wanted it all.
He curled his fingers against her cheek, only half-conscious of his own movement, and she opened her eyes.
"I dreamed that you were dead," she said at last, in her soft low voice.
A nightmare. So that was it. That was all.
It was the first time she'd ever spoken to him of such things.
He'd dreamed the same of her, more than once. Statistically speaking, it was not a scene he would ever have to face in reality. Even if he weren't the man he was, even if they all bundled away into quiet retirement on some backwater planet, the likelihood was that he would die before her. Age meant less these days than it had in ancient times, but the human lifespan was nonetheless limited. Immortality would never be anything more than an illusion.
Still he had dreamed of it. Her body, lying gray and still in his arms. Or in the distance, out of reach, pulled by gravity out of sight forever. Or seized and ripped apart piece by piece, until she was no longer his pet, his little beast, no longer the woman he loved.
Worst of all were the dreams where she was simply gone. Gone, nowhere to be found, no proof that she had ever even existed. And the immensity of solitude, never before troubling, had crushed him with its inexorable finality.
But he did not tell her these things.
Instead, he said quietly, "What would you have done? If you had been too late? If Dulan's bait hadn't been a trick?"
It was a while before she replied.
"I don't know."
He didn't know either, what answer he had hoped to hear. Avenge him? Little hope of that, against a man like Dulan. Allied with Redshirt regardless? Difficult to imagine her with them: an oasis of tranquility amid the slapdash madness. Most likely she would have slipped back into civilian life with help from Andrei and Leen, and lived out the rest of her days in ordinary peace.
But no. However things might have played out, he would be a fool to believe her willing to return to that life. It took a certain madness just choosing to leave, to roam the darkness of space for months and years on end, severed from the rest of humanity save for transitory encounters that faded soon enough back into the endless days of routine.
"I never considered it before."
What would she have done if he had not been the man she hoped for? Had she never considered that? Or was this even what she had hoped to find in the first place? Had she hoped for anything particular in all, when she first came to him?
She must have sensed the subtle change in his mood, or perhaps the same doubts weighed on her, for her hold on his hand tightened.
"I didn't like to think of things that might never come to fruition." She hesitated again before continuing, "Whatever life chose to throw at me, I thought I'd figure out a way to handle it, one way or another."
As she must have done, until now.
"All I knew was that I had to do something. Anything. I didn't let myself think about... failure."
In this, as in other matters, she was different from him. He understood, too, that in admitting this to him she did not seek praise or censure, nor even reassurance.
Rather, because he had asked -- she answered.
"I think," she said then, "I would go mad otherwise."
They were silent again for some time.
Then Sabinus said, "I can't make you any promises. But there's one thing I've known ever since I was a kid: no matter what happens, I intend to die on my own terms."
She bowed her head, squeezing his hand again, so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
"Me too," she whispered.
If her remark surprised him, it was only a momentary surprise. This, too, was something he had long suspected, perhaps understood even longer. She would have never made the choices she had, otherwise.
He was no fool, nor was she. He knew very well that even the manner of one's own death could not be guaranteed, that even the strongest of men could not choose when and how to die. Had seen it proved, time and time again.
But even the weak could choose how to face it.
"Before I met my teacher," she said after a while, "I don't think I ever considered life worth living."
"That's a long time," he said, wondering.
"Mm," she replied.
Then she hesitated yet again, this time in the way she always did when she was gathering her thoughts into words.
"I went through the motions, rebelling in little ways, tamping down on my true self. Despite knowing that I couldn't hold it all in forever, that someday it would all explode. But I didn't care. I owed nothing to the universe. After all, I never asked to be born."
For all her secrecy, she had never been anything but true to him. He knew this. The same way he knew he loved her, the same way he didn't know -- couldn't possibly ever know -- whether she loved him.
It reminded him of something someone had said to him once, long ago, in another lifetime: You make people feel exposed.
The comment had rankled, at the time. Why should he be held responsible for what others felt? For their own doubts and fears? If they desired to live a lie, that was their prerogative. But let them build their own towers, their own walls and fortresses against the truth. He had no interest or desire to be dragged into their muddle of naive fantasies and dreary insecurities.
Only later, older, more experienced, had he begun to understand that there were others who craved the catharsis of exposure, instead of dreading it. But this had rankled him too, in another way entirely. As if by diminishing his existence into abstraction they could prove something about their own...
"Even after she set me free, I wasn't sure. I'd always known what I wanted. But just because I wanted, didn't mean I could have. And I'd spent so long pretending that I didn't know if I could stop anymore."
She needn't have worried, he thought.
She'd told him a little, over time, of the years she spent wandering, the years after she left her old colony and before she came to him. Some of it had surprised him. Some of it had not. He guessed now that it had all been her way of making up for lost time. Of, for once, living her life as she pleased.
Either way, in all her tales she had been no unfamiliar stranger, no unrecognizable character, but unmistakably her. She spoke of pretending, but the truth, he suspected, was simpler, and one he understood all too well.
People looked at her, but did not see her. They saw only what they wished to see.
"You're a terrible actor."
She laughed one of her rare little laughs. "I wasn't sure."
"Well, you are."
"Yes," she agreed, smiling so sweetly at him that he had to look away.
Still irritated by his own reaction to her, he said, "You're released from the contract when I die."
Her voice was soft and low, but unfaltering. "What if I don't want to be?"
"You're the one who wrote it, pet."
He could hear the smile in her voice as she said, "Okay."
Insufferable little beast.
By the time he turned his head back, she had lowered her gaze and composed her expression once more.
He would never fall into the trap of believing that he had tamed her. Deep within her core lurked a wildness that could never be fully extinguished. How had this creature, whose very soul was inimical to authority, ever allowed itself to be subjugated?
Even when he knew the answer, the question would always remain.
He thought often of the past these days. Wondering, always, about the man he might have become, if their paths had crossed earlier. If he would have been capable of accepting her even then, or if he would have thrown her away, unheeding, like a fool. If the hopeless hunger that had driven him all these years would have been assuaged by her presence. By the very knowledge of her existence.
If he would have even noticed her. Recognized her.
If she had never found him, would he have known to look?
"I'm glad I was born," she whispered.
It had never occurred to him as something to be glad about. For him, or for anyone.
He was here. He was alive. He could scream that fact a thousand times over into the void, and no one would ever hear.
But that did not matter.
"Come here," he said, raising the covers and shifting back to make room for her.
She tilted her head at him. Then she climbed up, slowly, carefully, and settled into the hollow of the mattress, shivering slightly at his lingering warmth. He clasped her waist to him, running his fingers briefly over the belt at her hips, the shield between her thighs. Her breasts squashed up against his bare chest, and his cock stirred at her softness, her heat, the fresh fragrance of her hair. She must have felt it too, for her breath hitched, and she tensed ever so slightly, pulse quickening beneath her skin.
But he closed his eyes without another word. There would be time enough to play tomorrow, and the day after, and after that as well.
Tonight, he would hold her, and keep her nightmares at bay.
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