Chapter Text
Vel is thirteen years old when the galaxy as she knows it comes crashing down around her for the first time.
She is crossing the hallway towards Mae’s room. Excitement turns her walk into a giddy skip, and she has to lift the hem of her golden dress so as not to trip over it. She can’t wait to show the lavish garment off to her friends later. While not as opulent as Mae’s dress, it’s the most sophisticated thing she has ever worn, and she knows the other girls will be so jealous.
“Mae,” she calls her sister's name, as her knuckles rap heavily on the door. “We have to leave or we’ll be late.”
When there is no answer even after the second time she calls out, Vel opens the door and peeks inside. The room is tidier than usual, with no clothes or various other items strewn all over the floor.
That’s the first inkling that something is wrong.
The second is that the room is empty.
“Mae?” Vel asks quietly.
Nothing.
Vel backs out of the room and notices that the door to the bathroom she shares with her sister is closed. The stone floor feels suddenly chilly against her bare feet as she walks towards the door. A cold shiver runs down her spine, despite the warmth of the summer day.
Again, she knocks and calls out Mae’s name – and again she receives no answer.
“Come on, Mae,” she says. “I saw you earlier. You already look perfect. Arlon will think so, too.”
No answer.
Vel’s hand trembles as she reaches for the access pad. The door opens with a swoosh, and she steps inside.
At first, she doesn’t realise what she is seeing.
Mae is sitting on the floor, leaning against the edge of the generous claw-foot bathtub. She looks peaceful, and her closed eyes showcase the brilliant eye shadow on her lids. Her thin ceremonial braids, that Arlon will have to cut off later, are draped over her shoulders, and she is already wearing the gown for the ceremony.
But the gown is all wrong.
It’s not the brilliant white colour it should be. Huge red stains mar the sides of the dress, and – not just the dress. The floor is bathed in a sea of red. When Vel looks down, she sees that it extends all the way to where she is standing.
Only then does she notice the sticky wetness under her feet.
That’s when she starts to scream. She wants her sister to move. To say something. Anything. But there’s only the echo of her own scream, ringing in her ears.
Vel’s instincts tell her to run, but her limbs refuse to obey. She is frozen in her spot. She can’t even close her eyes or look away. The image of Mae’s limp body burns itself on her retina. For months, the sight of the blood-stained wedding gown will overshadow everything else she sees.
“Vel!” Her mother’s breathless voice appears behind her. “What’s the matter?”
Warm hands touch her shoulders and turn her around.
Vel can see the exact moment she notices the scene behind her. A choked gasp leaves her throat, and her hands tighten painfully on Vel’s shoulders. Then she pushes her aside and darts towards Mae, falling to her knees next to her and grasping her wrists in a futile attempt to stop the life from leaving her body.
***
People scurry around her. Medics, police, relatives. Vel watches them all apathetically, like in a trance, and in return, they seem not to notice her.
At some point, she must have walked into Mae’s room because she finds herself sitting on her sister’s bed, hugging her pillows.
The sun continues its course across the sky, and before Vel knows it, the light turns dimmer and dimmer, until the room is bathed in darkness. She can’t comprehend how the time keeps progressing when Mae will forever be still, frozen in that one moment that will define her in everyone’s memories.
The girl who took her own life on the day of her wedding.
A tear slips down Vel’s cheek. She doesn’t care enough to wipe it away, and more and more follow, until she is sobbing.
She buries her face in the pillow. The scent of Mae’s shampoo fills her nostrils, making her cry even harder, until she is choking on her tears and gasping for air.
At some point, someone starts to rub her back. The small circular motion is soothing. She recognises Mon’s voice mumbling mindless reassurances, and when she finally lifts her head, it is indeed her cousin sitting next to her on the bed.
Mon’s eyes are red-rimmed and glassy. A single tear falls down her cheek as she looks at Vel. “I’m so sorry, Vel,” she says. “So incredibly sorry.”
Vel doesn’t answer. She doesn’t trust her voice, and even if she did, there would be nothing to say. She bows her head, willing herself to be anywhere else. If she avoids looking at Mon’s face, she can almost imagine it’s a normal day. That it’s Mae who is sitting across from her.
Then she notices the bloody footprints on the floor and the red smears at the edge of the bed.
***
Vel’s dress sticks uncomfortably to her legs. She’s in the fresher, standing in the shallowly filled tub. The water has long run cold, but she’s barely registering the chill anymore.
Her eyes are fixed on the pink swirls floating around her feet. It’s hypnotic. The longer she stares, the heavier her whole body feels.
Mon is right next to her, fingers digging into Vel’s arm, keeping her steady.
It’s a shame.
The water looks lovely. It would be nice to just lie down and see the pink swirls from below.
***
Grief is exhausting. Nobody ever told her that.
The fatigue penetrates her right to the core, settling in her bones. One moment, it’s latent, hiding just out of sight, but still close enough to cast a shadow over everything else. The next moment, it’s at the forefront, eclipsing any other thought and feeling.
It’s always there. Taking, taking, taking. Draining her empty.
Getting out of bed feels impossible.
***
There’s screaming downstairs. Her mother.
A crashing sound, like breaking glass. Then another. And another.
More screaming. Her father?
For a moment, Vel considers going down and checking what’s going on. It seems to be an impossible task. Before she can bring herself to take even the first step, the noise already abates.
***
Mon is sitting on the edge of her bed. “You need to get up, Vel,” she says. Her voice is gentle, but the exhaustion in it is palpable.
Vel should say something, anything, to return even a sliver of the comfort Mon has offered her over the past days. She wants to, but no words emerge. Her voice is failing her.
So she turns away.
“Vel.” Mon touches her shoulder. “We need to leave soon or we’ll be late.”
The words hit Vel with the weight of a Republic frigate. She’s back in the hallway, knocking on her sister’s door. There’s no answer, so she presses the access pad. The door opens, opens, opens, and … “Dammit, Vel, have you never heard of knocking?”
Mae pushes her out of the room, and the door slams closed in front of her face.
Bang.
“Vel!” Mon is shaking her, nails digging into her shoulder.
A sob wracks through Vel’s body.
***
The funeral is a small and quiet affair, not the feverish spectacle of lamentation that Chandrilan culture dictates.
“It is the sensible thing to do, considering the circumstances,” Aunt Dalia tells Vel’s parents.
The only mourners present are their immediate family and Arlon with his parents. Vel ignores all of them. Mon squeezes her hand when Mae’s embalmed body is lifted on its designated pedestal in the family crypt. Mae’s body is rigid. It lands heavy on the white linen, like a wooden doll. The sound makes Vel cringe.
The worst thing, however, is the eyes.
Per custom, they are open. It’s supposed to make sure that Mae will not inadvertently disrespect Ashahīda, the one who sees, when she meets him on the brink of Afterlife.
It’s also disturbing.
They say that looking into someone’s eyes is like looking into someone’s soul. But looking into Mae’s eyes is like looking into a mirror.
Mae’s eyes have always had the same shade of icy blue as Vel’s. They have always held a twinkle of wonder – but now, they look like Vel feels: dull and unnaturally still. All the buoyancy has left, and the only thing that remains is a torpid lump of flesh and bones.
Vel can’t bear the sight. A cold shiver runs down her spine, and she finally lets herself look away.
There are empty pedestals on both sides of Mae’s. Two for their parents and one for Vel when the time comes – unless she marries into a family of higher status. In that case, she will share their final resting place.
Not that it matters much. The crypts are all the same, in their essence, and they are all depressing, housing generations of corpses preserved forever to reflect the last day of lives long lost.
Leaving Mae here feels like one last betrayal.
Vel blinks her tears away, and suddenly the ceremony is already over. Everyone is filing out of the crypt, but Vel doesn’t feel ready to leave. Not yet. This can’t be goodbye.
“Do you want to be alone?” Mon asks when everyone else has left.
Vel shrugs. It doesn’t matter. The entrance to the crypt could be locked, burying them both here alive, and it wouldn’t matter.
She doesn’t know what drives her, but she walks over towards the pedestal next to Mae’s, the one that is designated for her, and slowly sits down on top of it. Mon says her name, but Vel ignores her and lies down.
Her eyes fix on the ceiling of the crypt. There’s a stucco artwork spread over the whole expanse that depicts scenes from Chandrilan mythology. She hadn’t noticed before. But maybe she wasn’t supposed to.
It’s not for the living, this decoration. It’s for the dead. The ceiling of this forsaken crypt is all they will see for the rest of eternity. It’s just as well that it’s been decorated, Vel thinks, but they should have just built the crypt without a ceiling instead. If it were her, she would rather see the sky and feel the wind on her face.
Vel forces her body to become completely still and holds her breath. This is it, she thinks. This is Mae’s existence now, and Vel might as well become acquainted with it, because one day, it will be hers, too.
It’s peaceful in a strange way: the numbingly cold stone under her back, the stillness, and the absolute lack of any sounds.
Pressure starts to build in her chest, and her lungs burn for air as the seconds pass, but Vel isn’t ready yet for this moment to end. Because if it ends, she will have to get up, and she will have to leave this crypt behind. And if she leaves this crypt, she will have to leave Mae behind, and her sister will be truly gone.
Vel isn’t ready for that. (Will never be ready for that.)
The moment shatters with a choked gasp for air.
***
Arlon and his parents join them when they return to the house. (Because now it’s not home anymore. All the love and warmth poured out of it with the blood out of Mae’s veins, leaving behind nothing but a barren architectural structure.)
The silence of the crypt still clings to Vel as they sit down and K3-T serves refreshments. Hearing the adults engage in meaningless small talk feels obscene. The world shouldn’t be able to just move on like that.
Vel doesn’t care to hear what a beautiful last hymn her mother picked out for the service or how lovely Mae’s dress was. The sight of a white gown drenched in blood haunts her whenever she closes her eyes.
She yearns to go back to the moment of peace when she was lying in the crypt, but it is long gone, and she thinks she may never know peace again.
The sound of clattering glass snaps her out of her contemplation.
Her mother is pouring a glass of wine, but her hands are shaking so strongly that she keeps clinking the carafe against the glass. The sound rattles through the silence. Then she misses the glass entirely, and a flower of red blooms on the white tablecloth. Vel watches it grow and spread, like something alive.
Her father reaches out and covers her mother’s hand, halting her movements. “Let me,” he whispers. It sounds like a plea.
No one speaks as her father fills the glass and dabs at the stained tablecloth with a napkin. His hands are steady, but there’s a pinch in his brows.
It’s Arlon’s father who finally breaks through the silence. “We grieve with you,” he says. “Of course, we do. But grief does not stop your family’s misfortune from reflecting upon us as well.”
His words land like a bolt of thunder, visibly breaking through Vel’s father’s careful composure. The napkin falls from his hands as they curl into fists.
Across from Vel, Arlon looks nauseous. His eyes dart back and forth between Vel and his father, and his mouth keeps opening and snapping closed. In the end, he stays quiet.
Out of nowhere, Vel’s mother speaks. “Mae was not our only daughter.”
At first, Vel doesn’t understand. Her mother uses ‘was’ so easily, it feels like someone is squeezing her heart in their palm.
A week ago, Mae was Vel’s sister. A week ago, her heart was beating, and her hands shook as she put on her white gown. Now she is dead, and that means she isn’t anything else anymore. She just was … everything.
Arlon’s father gives Vel a once-over. “She’s a child,” he says flatly. “We can’t wait for years. And even if we could, you must understand, of course, how this will be perceived. Not even grief can erase this scandal.”
His words slide into place, cold and sharp. Only then does Vel understand the implications of what her mother just said. What she just offered so apathetically. What her father accepted in silence.
Her hands clench tightly enough that the glass in them bursts into a hail of shards. And something else shatters with it in that moment. Something intangible that Vel will not recognise for what it is until years and years later, when it burgeons again under the steady touch of calloused hands amid blaster fire and adrenaline.
***
Vel dreams of Mae that night.
“I’m sorry,” her sister tells her. “You weren’t supposed to be the one who found me.”
Vel is crying already. “You weren’t supposed to die. I need you.” She angrily wipes at her tears. “I need you, and you just abandoned me.”
“I’m sorry.” Mae looks sorry, too. Her face exudes heartbreak, and her eyes look upon Vel with so much kindness that she can’t stand it.
“This is all your fault,” she gasps out, voice choked by tears. “Mother wants me to marry him instead.”
Mae looks away. “I’m sorry,” she repeats for the third time.
“I just don’t understand. Why? You could have said ‘no’. And if that didn’t work, you could have run away. And if that didn’t work … was this really bad enough to die over?” Vel is panting by the end of it.
Mae doesn’t answer.
Of course, she doesn’t answer. She is dead, and all that Vel has left are questions and pain. (And anger.) There must have been signs. How could Vel not see them? Had she been so swept up in the grandeur of the pretty dresses and expensive gifts that she’d been blind to Mae’s suffering? Or was there another reason altogether? She thinks that if only she could understand why, if she weren’t left with this gaping hole of not-knowing and wondering where she went wrong, then it wouldn’t hurt so much.
But it does hurt. Oh, does it hurt.
Mae shattered Vel’s world and then put the pointed shards in her mangled hands. All that Vel can do now to keep from tearing the rest of herself to pieces is to turn this weapon against the one who created it.
“You wanted to leave?” she screams. “So just go! Don’t come back. I don’t want to see you, and I don’t want to think about you. Go!”
The silhouette of her sister disappears, and Vel is left bleeding and alone. “I’m sorry,” she whispers to the empty space in front of her, before crumpling into a broken heap of tears on the floor. “I should have saved you.”