---
After the meeting room.
The corridor.
People finding their directions — Charo back to the navigation, Gyumi toward the kitchen, Kaizar to the garden room to check the flower on the ledge.
Alya had found the corridor's end.
She was standing there.
Looking at the viewport.
At the stars.
Astra found her there.
He came down the corridor with the specific quality of someone who had decided to find a person and was finding them.
He stopped beside her.
He looked at the stars with her.
He breathed.
He said nothing for a moment.
She said nothing.
The stars outside.
**Astra :** "You were a Commander General."
He said it.
Not a question.
**Alya :** "Yes."
She said it.
**Astra :** "What does a Commander General of the Shadow and Dark Matter Clan do."
She breathed.
She breathed.
**Alya :** "We patrol the boundary."
She said it.
**Alya :** "The Shadow and Dark Matter Clan exists at the boundary between the light layer and the dark layer of the available space."
She breathed.
**Alya :** "The Commander General patrols it."
She breathed.
**Alya :** "Everything that crosses the boundary without authorization."
She breathed.
**Alya :** "I dealt with it."
She breathed.
**Astra :** "What does that mean."
**Alya :** "It means I dealt with it."
She said it flatly.
She breathed.
She looked at the stars.
**Alya :** "For thirty years."
She breathed.
**Alya :** "Then I stopped."
She breathed.
**Astra :** "Why."
**Alya :** "Because the boundary does not need a Commander General."
She breathed.
**Alya :** "It needs something larger."
She breathed.
She breathed.
**Alya :** "And I was tired of dealing with things that were not the largest available thing."
She breathed.
She looked at Astra.
At the silver eyes.
**Alya :** "You are going toward the Astral Dragon Clan."
She said it.
**Astra :** "Yes."
**Alya :** "The oldest branch."
She breathed.
**Alya :** "They will not be easy."
She breathed.
**Alya :** "Old things that have been themselves for a very long time have a specific relationship with new things asking them to move."
She breathed.
**Astra :** "I know."
He said it.
He said it simply.
**Astra :** "That is why I need the people who know the seven clans."
He breathed.
He looked at her.
**Astra :** "You know them."
She breathed.
She breathed.
**Alya :** "I have patrolled alongside the Astral Dragons for thirty years."
She breathed.
**Alya :** "I know them."
She breathed.
She looked at the stars.
**Alya :** "They are patient."
She breathed.
**Alya :** "And patient things that are also very old and very powerful."
She breathed.
**Alya :** "Respect the patience first."
She breathed.
**Alya :** "Everything else follows from that."
She breathed.
Astra breathed.
He looked at the stars.
He breathed.
He breathed.
**Astra :** "Thank you."
He said it.
He said it simply.
She looked at him.
At the silver eyes.
At the direct quality.
She breathed.
She turned back to the stars.
She said nothing.
But she stayed.
---
The corridor near the navigation room.
Tenkai.
He was walking.
Not toward anywhere specific — the walking of someone who had left the meeting room and had not yet decided where the next destination was.
He was thinking about the past.
About seventeen.
About the planet.
About the I hate you in the open air.
He breathed.
He breathed.
He thought about what Alya had said in the meeting room.
About the delivery of it — not cruel, direct.
The specific directness of someone for whom the question had been a real question rather than an attack.
He breathed.
He thought: she was always direct.
He breathed.
He thought: even then.
He breathed.
He thought about his sister.
About the hoodie.
About again.
About the years of it.
He breathed.
He thought: I should find her.
He breathed.
He breathed.
He stopped at the corridor's junction.
He looked at the navigation room doorway.
Charo inside.
The star maps.
The trajectory.
Ten days.
He breathed.
He breathed.
**Alya :** "You are thinking loudly."
The voice from behind him.
He turned.
She was there.
Standing at the corridor's other end.
Arms still folded.
She had come from the viewport.
She had found him.
Or found the corridor and he had been in it.
The difference between those two things was not clear.
He breathed.
**Tenkai :** "I do not think loudly."
He said it.
She breathed.
**Alya :** "You are standing in the middle of a corridor doing nothing."
She said it.
**Alya :** "That is the definition of thinking loudly."
He breathed.
He breathed.
He looked at her.
At the blue-purple eyes.
At the pastel black hair.
At the arms folded.
He breathed.
She looked at him.
The rivalry.
Still alive.
Still the specific alive quality of something that had existed for years in the form of an I hate you in open air and which had never been resolved because resolution had not been available and had not been sought.
She breathed.
He breathed.
Neither of them looked away.
**Tenkai :** "You are better than you were."
He said it.
He said it the way he said things — flat, direct, no embellishment.
Not a compliment exactly.
A factual statement.
She breathed.
She breathed.
She breathed.
She looked at him.
**Alya :** "Obviously."
She said it.
She said it with the flat quality.
**Alya :** "So are you."
She breathed.
She turned.
She walked.
She found a door.
She went through it.
Gone.
Tenkai breathed.
He breathed.
He breathed.
He looked at the corridor.
At the space where she had been.
He breathed.
He breathed.
He breathed.
His arms found their folded position.
He breathed.
He went to the navigation room.
He stood at the doorway.
He looked at Charo.
At the star maps.
At the trajectory.
**Tenkai :** "How long."
He said it.
**Charo :** "Ten days."
She said it.
She did not look up.
Tenkai breathed.
Ten days.
He breathed.
He breathed.
He breathed.
He went to find his tea.
---
---