🔹 Lasi and Salven
______________________
The others were asleep.
Outside, the stars churned—slow, infinite rivers of light coiling past the pod's glass like the breath of gods. Nebulae bloomed like bruises across the void. Lasi sat alone by the window, knees drawn up, breath fogging the pane as if she were trying to write to the cosmos in vapor.
She didn't expect answers.
Only silence.
Only the hum of a universe too old to speak plainly.
The door hissed open behind her.
She didn't turn.
She felt him—not his footsteps, but the shift in the gravity of the room.
Salven entered like a moon dragged into orbit.
"You couldn't sleep either," she said, voice barely above a murmur.
"I haven't slept since the shimmer said your name."
She lowered her head, hair falling like a veil between her and the stars.
He sat beside her. The closeness was natural, like moons aligning. She leaned in without thought, the way waves meet the shore—inevitable, ancient.
"I feel like I'm remembering my death more than my life," she whispered.
He said nothing.
But his breath matched hers—the same rhythm. The same ache.
"It's like being stitched together by ghosts," she said. "I don't even know if this version of me is real."
"You're real to me," he answered.
A truth as heavy as stone etched into the walls of a long-dead temple.
She turned then. Eyes wet, but lit with defiance.
"Do you even remember me? Not the mission. Me."
He pulled off his glove slowly, like peeling back time itself.
His hand met hers.
Their fingers touched.
"Karae'vul… Laeth suven Kai," Salven whispered to her in a deep, raspy voice.
("You were always my origin… the beginning before the break.")
She didn't understand the words—she never did when he spoke the mysterious but beautiful language. He never told her what it meant, when asked.
But her soul seemed to recognize it.
She gasped, breathless.
The feeling gave her goosebumps.
"I never forgot you," he whispered, pulling her closer. "I just didn't know if I was still allowed to hold you."
Her breath caught.
Her body leaned in—not pulled by gravity, but by the ache beneath the bones of the world.
Their foreheads touched.
A communion.
The universe quieted.
Even the stars paused to listen.
"Elen mora'teth," he whispered, lips brushing her ear.
("My other dawn… my returning half.")
When their lips met, it was less a kiss and more a return—
A crossing of forgotten rivers.
A rejoining of what had been torn by the Shatterwinds.
It began soft—
Then deepened—
Hungry. Whole.
Made of years that never got to finish.
She climbed into his lap, knees framing him like a prayer etched in flesh.
Her hands dove into his hair.
His arms wrapped her, reverent. Anchored.
Clothes unwound like smoke. Fell like offerings.
Soft kisses on her skin.
Salven whispered against her shoulder:
"Zav' rein Tula noxi."
("I remember all that you are.")
"Koru'n elen shai'n."
("Forgive my sacred wrong.")
Skin met skin, and her breath caught—
Not because of heat, but because her body and soul seemed to recognize him
before her thoughts could.
Before her fear could stop it.
He laid her down.
The cot became a sanctum.
Their marks glowed across the sheets—
Constellations not even the old gods remembered.
His hands moved slowly—
Tracing, memorizing her body like a map.
As if he were unearthing scripture buried beneath dust and grief.
She gasped when he kissed the scar beneath her ribs—
The one only he had ever touched.
She whispered his name—the old one.
"Sa'laven."
The name from before the Splitting.
He didn't correct her.
But something inside him answered.
They made love like memory returning.
Like ruin turned back into ritual.
"Dän yøl flå'år," he whispered.
("This is the soul's rising.")
Slow at first.
His rhythm was deliberate. Sensational.
His whispers low and sacred.
"Mel'fe yali' ke…"
("Before light was born, you were mine.")
Then—desperate.
Whispers of foreign, intimate words in rhythm:
"Ce'le syi… Ce'le fae nã…"
("I see you. I feel you in all realms.")
Her hands tangled in his hair.
"Ce'le ma lei…"
("You are my breath.")
His mouth at her throat.
Her back arched—like the sky's horizon bending to meet the sun again.
"Dän yai kor'teth," he murmured against her chest.
("This pain is my penance.")
Every thrust.
Every breath.
Every closing inch between them—
It was knowing.
It was remembrance.
He turned her gently, trailing kisses from the back of her neck
as he entered her again.
Every movement, every whisper:
"Zav' rein Tula noxi…"
His arm held her steady.
("I remember.")
"Elen mora'teth…"
A teasing shift in tempo.
("You are my morning.")
"Ce'le mora yai'l…"
A gentle tug at her hair.
("You are still my light.")
A kiss behind her ear.
"Ce'le ma thula…"
("You are my center.")
Their rhythm built—
Like stormlight between broken moons.
"Elen yol'en fae teth…"
("My soul opens to yours fully.")
She whispered his name again—
Not as plea, but as prophecy.
"Sa'laven."
He paused.
Just for a breath.
Eyes wide.
Something old had spoken through her voice.
They didn't sleep.
By morning, they were tangled.
Sore.
Silent.
He kissed the hollow of her collarbone—
The place where her fear used to live.
She touched the line of his jaw like she'd drawn it in a dream long ago.
"Nol'kai shai ven'nai…" he whispered.
("I miss the half I used to be with you.")
Neither said thank you.
They didn't need to.
⸻
Later that morning, Scarlet and Ka'rui found them standing at the edge of the capital city's riftline collapse, watching dawn spill over the broken horizon.
Lasi held the shard.
Salven stood beside her.
The journal flared again.
New coordinates.
The final fragment.
Scarlet read it aloud:
"Last known origin: Twin Fall Range.
The place where the river splits."
Ka'rui looked at Lasi. "Are we ready?"
She didn't answer right away.
She just turned toward the sunrise—
The wind kissing her scars, her blade, her heartbeat—
The fragments of someone once split, now preparing to be whole enough to fight.
"No," she said.
"But we go anyway."
And they did.