Archive of Our Own

This is Kihel calling Kihel.

This is Dianna calling Dianna.

I descended to Earth like a flock of birds, and you rose to greet me—

—I rose from the Earth like a raft of mists, and you descended to greet me.

At the landing pad, you sat amid the maples of Bostonia, in the light blue dress sewn by our mother. With your gentle eyes you take after her the most. I always took charge too easily, sought past the station given to a mine owner’s daughter. Now I hear that those who see you call me matured—well, I guess that at your age you would have to be. Lieutenant Ord called me refreshing.

“It’s a compliment,” he said while disembarking the ship. He’s funny like that.

Those cultivated on the moon turn to the Soleils, like helianthus. You assume their love with a fervor I found myself no longer able to match. I am burnt by the cold. My cells lysed; I was thawed and frozen again. Maintained by the need for stability, the need to believe in the eventual resurrection, I died. My awakenings were rationed out like days of sunlight in that one tale from before the dark history—the world where flowers had only an afternoon to live.

“This is one of those happy times,” I said to you, and stood with Loran’s assistance. You closed the gap. Forehead to forehead, nose to nose. Once again we are breathing the same air.

In two days the Lady Borjano will marry Lord Lineford in absentia, and afterwards you will leave me. No matter how often I experience dismal things, they never grow easier. You hold my hands as if my bones reflected my age. I am no more made of glass than you; my body’s suffering results solely from the incurable small losses each cooling brings. So too my heart has been callused. When you brush your lips to my knuckles, and then my wrist—perhaps age has caught up with me, left my heart pounding and head spinning.

We are never separated in this new age. When I began working at the telegraph office it opened a new world to me, one where we could exist outside of our bodies. The words low-latency connection are music when you understand their meaning. When I raise my left hand you raise your right hand with only a second’s delay.

Are you familiar with quantum physics?

I know what you mean—two particles, no matter the distance, always demonstrating the opposite spin.

But they are neither until observed. You are interchangeable with me, unless frozen in a moment which requires Dianna Soleil or Kihel Heim. At that instant one becomes one and the other becomes the other.

Before that our identities are a private and amorphous thing. Before now I have never been granted this sort of freedom; I have lived three centuries because the responsibilities of the person the Moon calls queen were considered inseparable from this physical form. It is painful to exist solely for one’s flesh.

“Lily wants to borrow the Lieutenant,” Loran said in an aside to me. “Someone to physically stand in for Lineford.”

“Why him?”

“She must have her reasons.”

The countryside before us was rich in the incidental colors of unplanned life. The partially unfolded leaves were a green that only comes at this time of year. We rode on between established farms and half-built ones, the dream of peaceful coexistence coming to life. Neighbors built fences low enough to talk over. A group of children ran in circles while their parents added panels to a geodesic dome.

Per the conditions of coexistence, my—your—our people had to freely share the sciences they’d developed while anticipating the return. The university was open for Moonrace professors seeking tenure. Every morning half a dozen newspapers were wired up to my office to monitor conditions on Earth. There were still problems—

--but nothing worth doing is ever easy. We seek one another out because it is a desirable exchange. My life for yours.

Our lieutenant once refused that trade.

He rejected that which is non-reciprocal. A debt must be returned with an equal credit. If I die, so does Kihel Heim—you will be forced into chirality. We go together.

“The Lady Borjano asked me to be one of her bridesmaids. I turned her down.”

“For reasons of health,” Loran supplies, smoothly taking a hairpin turn.

“I feared she’d have to reject one of her sisters in favor of me. A dozen lavender dresses is no small expense.”

“Will you be wearing a dress?” Harry asks Loran.

“Laura Rolla has been retired.”

“Shame. I had a lovely time dancing with her.”

I notice you poke Harry hard for that remark; that is the part of us I think of as being Kihel. The casual, the bold, the one freed from ice crusts of tradition and a society focused only on a hypothetical tomorrow. When you look to the sky you miss the little flowers of the field. I was negligent; I failed to see that among my army were those who would see our new towns built over the bones of the dead.

I love you because you may be me at any moment. And I know that as me you would treat me kindly, despite my transgressions.

You cried for my father when I could not. Even if you say it was for your own—when you are Kihel, that is you father’s grave, and when I am Dianna, I weep for the entire royal sepulcher. I will carry your regrets if you carry mine. We will each love the longed for of the other, and so be whole.

The thing I miss most on the Moon is the wind.

On Earth I still find myself frightened by the storms.

If the sky you grew up under were to crack, it’d have spelled death for all residing there. Under the sky I knew, a lack of storms was a punishing thing. You don’t need rain to mine, but you do need well-fed miners, and with a crop failure—but you wouldn’t happen to know hunger like that on the Moon, would you?

No famine, no plague, no war. Our only enemy is death, and even he can be delayed.

I do not regret the Soleils having created such a place. My sadness is that we concealed the price paid to achieve it. Without reminders of the Dark History I believe we grew complacent as to what war brings; the Ghingham family viewed peace as stagnation. He drove me to send those three to Earth. I was fooled into thinking that would satisfy. But man’s need for blood awakened cannot be halted, at least not when one believes it is the correct state for all societies.

Perhaps we would have been better to remain on the Moon.

Let me tell you a story.

When I stayed on the Moon in your place the Lieutenant took me to a doctor there. She was horrified at what she saw in my blood; she thought that the repeated cold sleeps had compromised your immune system and left you vulnerable to the so-called primitive diseases. Did you know that all of us left on Earth have lying dormant in our cells at least one oncovirus? Those latent infections inside me are gone, now. But if you were to add up the weeks and months imperceptibly sliced off the lives of those not so fortunate it would be a war’s worth of loss.

You cannot undo the cities destroyed or the bombs dropped or the field hospital’s piles of limbs. As you, I can only express my regret by lessening those burdens. Someday the Earthrace will be capable of forgiving us.

I cannot answer. I pray you are proven right.

One cannot help but admire the acting capabilities of Harry and Loran in leaving us together in this hotel room under the pretenses of fetching the luggage. They think we can’t see your suitcase by the window—and Loran packed his things together with mine. The gesture is appreciated. Our talks over video cannot compare to now, lying face to face on a bed bent by the weight of both our bodies.

I missed you. Is it vain to do so?

No vainer than it is to love oneself. That was something I struggled with, when I played Kihel. To love her as she is embodied in you is easier. And now I think I should like a hot beverage, to our mutual health. Tea or cocoa? It was very kind of the hotelier to provide us with a burner, despite the increased insurance premiums. Open flame wasn’t something I expected to miss on the Moon—one of those facts of life one takes for granted.

The induction tops are preferable, however. I think we all fall prey to the longing which led Ghingham to glorify war. Because things were once more dangerous, we were capable. Think of your light linen dress and cotton petticoats. When women cooked over open fires, they wore wool skirts to keep from being burned. If you were to walk by a fire, your clothes would scorch. Some call that risk the consequence of women’s frivolity, while others would attribute it to foolish modernism.

It’s more comfortable to wear. But they believe life is meant to be endured, and I was kept alive with no regard. The years thrust on me were not mine to enjoy. I much prefer the life you have given me, for all its indolence and seclusion. To sleep the whole day through of my own volition is superior to the cold chamber.

Have you done so recently?

The heat worsens my nerve dysfunction. I sleep to avoid the inconvenience. Loran is loyal and kind, but I do not wish to overburden him with my care. He found a specialist from the Moon for me to visit, but the damage appears irreparable. An unintended side effect of frequent refreezing. My lifespan also remains uncertain. I have remained stable in my decline; that is the most hopeful thing I can say.

It troubles me most to think of you once I am gone.

Don’t speak of it. While you draw breath, Kihel remains alive, and I am able to love her. When the time comes we will decide our fates. For now you are here with me, on this bed with a view of the clouds outside. Rain is coming in this afternoon. I will go outside in a chemise and let it soak my hair to my neck for you to dry when I return.

After the wedding I’d like to discuss a longer visit. We’ve gained experience in transporting medically fragile persons from the Earth to the Moon. Loran likely has people he’d like to see, doesn’t he? And it’s sad to live solely for someone else—

—that’s not what I intended. It was enough to wake and see around me the queen’s guard and attendants. I would never do him the disfavor of demanding sole devotion.

Do not attempt to abdicate this responsibility. He adores you beyond all hope or reason. He lives for you now that the war is over. Even if you did not ask for this burden, it is yours, and if you stay on Earth, he will never leave. Come to the Moon and let him talk to his friends again. In his isolation with you he has forgotten that he cannot live on a single love. Not even you do. You are Loran’s, and mine, and Harry’s when he’s feeling covetous.

Come closer to me. I have missed you. I am not content to live the way Lily Borjano will, waiting on a husband she knows will never bear the humiliation of coming home to see her. That is why she chose our Lieutenant to be his substitute. Wherever he is, he will hear of it, and know what it means. The industrial revolution belongs to her. All the gifts of the Moonrace to eastern Ameria come by her will.

Saying all that, it feels quite silly to remember she once made you scrub bed sheets for some small slight. What seemed so important to us then can feel so unimportant now. What I once loved I have had multiplied. Imagine my life if we had never met, if the moon had remained a mere object in the sky—an empty mirror reflecting nothing. Yes, touch me. Don’t stop. I’d rather miss the rain than miss you.

Imagine what silence looks like.

Trying is the hardest part.

The morning of the wedding Loran laces me in to one of the beautiful dresses you left behind. In wool so fine as to be mistaken for cotton I am fit to be mistaken for you after an episode of ill health. A few have questioned why Kihel Heim retreated into the mountains. Perhaps my tired and drawn face will answer them.

You look as radiant as ever to me. I have not yet grown accustomed to the style of Moonrace clothing. It is all so smooth, so lightweight even when structured. You know the way a set of petticoats sits around the legs. I lack a shell when I am Dianna. The firm embrace of elastics is my only familiar companion. And they say the girdle is making it to Earth—perhaps soon the garments you wear will become archaic.

In your private files you spoke on how relentless the onwards thrust of time is. Now I can see it. The city we ride through is no longer the city of my childhood. The people are different, the cars faster and the special edition newspapers printed in color.

The Moon did not change in the way you observe on Earth. Alterations were subtle. Small percentages of medical efficiency, a taste for marbled prints, a new set of artists made into cultural touchstones. The eye of our society gazed unblinkingly upon Earth. And yet we missed your people clawing back what the butterfly took. It was easier to imagine the Earth prelapsarian, untainted by what we had done to it. A reset clock—but to forget was to err.

We remembered enough to not repeat those mistakes, did we not? The war has ended. To survive and strive is enough, on Earth and on the Moon.

“Take my hand. I’ll walk you in to the chapel myself. Loran has to park, and Harry is required by his erstwhile bride.”

“I’m not marrying her.”

“You do prefer blondes.”

You have a skill for flustering the Lieutenant.

He makes it quite easy.

Your hands are rougher than I remember. Was it your garden? Loran sent me pictures alongside your request for seed stock. He said that perhaps you asked for them because they alone knew best your life’s struggle, frozen and then reborn on Earth’s soil. Don’t let him know I told you that—he was embarrassed to have even thought it.

It’s a beautiful idea. The lavender on the ends of the pews is from that garden. The food at the reception will be from those seeds you sent in the winter. I have given them freely to anyone who asks; their origin is this planet, their distant kin the landraces you grew up consuming. We will let them make new kinds for the future—a perfect mingling of the best from both.

I believe I understand Lady Borjano’s goal in taking the Lieutenant, now. She understands the purpose of symbols. To mingle the best of both without destroying either is the goal of a perfect marriage. A new being in two bodies that encircle one another. She is not marrying the Lord Lineford, who staked the future of Earth for his own gain. She is marrying a vision of the future. An interdependency that leaves each enriched.

Astute of her to have created such theater. Loran would have also sufficed, but I suppose the image of a queen’s guard in full dress conveys a bolder impression. The military might of the Moon has become the common inheritance of humanity. The beautiful bride leads an industrial revolution. Things are getting better all the time—and I love you so. The closer the two draw together the closer are you and I.

Until we merge?

Until we rest in stable orbit.