Volauniiadae Inside Out

Sat Aug 17, 2002

It takes starlight or moonlight to achieve the black and white shadows that streak across a tangle of limbs, leaving bare skin like luminous islands emerging from pools of ink. For a Vollistan it takes starlight or moonlight and one thing more: an aura dim enough that it doesn't fracture the purity of two stark tones.

Two Vollistans are curled on the bed, the bubble of light from the skin of one very dim indeed in the contented glimmer of rose sleep. This androgynous one is dim enough that the other, her aura dark, is cast into the black and white of midnight starlight that pours in with amazing clarity through the ship's viewport. She is curled around her sleeping companion like a kitten, occassionally reaching out gentle fingers to touch the rising and falling ripple of his ribs, and then with carefully slow movements that do not stir his sleep she reaches for a small book with an intricately woven cover. Spreading it open across her companion's flank she begins to write in the flowing, precise, bright colours of Volspak, shifting coloured pens often as she weaves her diary.

It's been a long time since I was home last. I don't even know how long it's been, more than a human year in the time that I'm getting more used to out here. It's been several lives that I've lived, and maybe several for Yonie as well.

I've always thought about home. I didn't leave because I wanted to; that's the most ironic thing about all this. I left because Yonie did, because I could never leave my brother-who-I-love even if it did mean going into the sky where Volir said people should never go and learn ten thousand ways to kill a friend before breakfast. I left because he saw these humans and thought they were beautiful; he wanted to look into their minds, into their poems, and it almost killed him.

I think it would be good for him to go home now. I've never done anything that wasn't good for him before, or rather, I've never not done anything that would be good for him except those very few times, like when I left him on Mars and when I went to Sivad. Here's the irony, though, and it sets up those little chimes of right-feeling because it's such a perfectly circular pattern: he belongs at home, like I did so long ago, but now I must stay out here.

It's hard for me to understand what it is that keeps me here. I know how I've changed, and I know that my people, the people I was so at home with when I left, are strangers now. I understand them very well, but my own world is bigger. I love more things now than I ever did then, even things I dislike. I love things more, too -- it's an important distinction, even though both are true.

I don't like the people out here at all. They're cruel, they're violent, and they're sadistic -- everyone is like that everywhere, just like everyone is kind and loving and generous sometime -- but it's less the violence that bothers me than the shame and the guilt. These are whole races with the inability to admit the truth about themselves even to themselves, and it frightens me to no end. People are supposed to be unpredictable, but they should at least understand why they're doing things, and what's driving them. They should be able to live with themselves, because we all have to live with ourselves for a very long time. That's the lonliest thing about the last year. It's not that Yonie wasn't well, or that I don't want to tell him everything now because I'm afraid it will make him bitterly burningly sad again, because if I'm doing something for Yonie I'm not lonely. What makes me lonely is that I feel like the only thinking person in a community of animals. I can't talk about things with these humans, because they aren't willing to admit that people can be perfect and beautiful, and conversely they aren't willing to admit that people can be flawed and terrible and tragic. They are afraid to care and afraid to love and so nobody cares about me or loves me except Yonie, and I have had to be so strong for Yonie for so long now.

It's easy to be strong for someone you love, especially when you understand them. What's hard is not being able to talk to them like before. I never understood why Yonie talked to paper like this, and I still don't. I'd rather be talking to him, and have him listen to me and hold me and cry on his chest and laugh and have him tell me how I'm right or wrong the way he's so sure of himself. I wonder if he'll ever be like that again, knowing everything int he world and proud instead of bitter? He might be. He's thrown the human world away for one which fits him better, and I'm very glad. You don't need the universe for yourself. I don't think anyone can deal with the whole of Volir's creation on their own, inside their own head, without going crazy. The only thing in my own head is me. I see the other things, but I don't turn them into myself like Yonie does, and so they only hurt me when I want them to.

We're still changing places. I'm writing, and Yonie talks to me when he needs to. I wonder if the reason he wrote before was that there were things he couldn't say to me? I wouldn't like to think that. Maybe it's because it was easier for him to write than talk? It's certainly harder for me to write like this. Everything I'm trying to say gets all tangled up, and it stops making sense. When I talk everything makes more sense than before.

And we've changed places because he's following me now. I need to go to Concordance and see Volarn again, although it will hurt me. I need to talk to Yonie about that, I suppose. I wasn't very nice to Volarn, before, and he's still comign after me to talk to me. Maybe someday he'll be almost as good a friend as Yonie, or maybe he is already. Maybe I can talk to him. I still miss Ashcolby though, so much, so much, so much. I still love Ashcolby too, even if I can't be with him because it hurts me too much. I can't go so close to someone who might leave me again, not like that. I can't even think about what it would be like to kiss someone, or to let them touch me like that... it wouldn't be nice anymore like it was with him. I couldn't think about anything but him. I need to tell Volarn this, because it's not fair to him otherwise. It's not fair for him to think that because Ashcolby's gone it might be alright...

It helped a little to write this. It made me feel a little better, even if it confused me more. Maybe I'll do it again, and try to be like Yonie so that people who read it could feel what I'm feeling when I write it. I'm tired, though, and confused, so I'll leave this for tonight and see if I can sleep now. I wish everyone could be like Yonie is, and listen to me when I need them to, and even when they're asleep reach out to snuggle me close.

I love you, Yonie. Vollista and Volir keep you safe. Goodnight.