Work Text:
A lone figure kneels, head fallen, before a large wall. His three eyes are held shut, squeezed as if keeping them shut is all that keeps the reality of his situation from reaching. His’s shadow falls long, covering half the wall that towers over him; yet, even his mountainous shadow is eclipsed by the painting covering the stone wall before him.
It towers over the young Nomai, both in body and spirit. Before him stands a Nomai whose face only this Nomai have ever known. It wouldn’t be right for it to have a known face, for the power it holds is too great for that. Dangling from it’s gloved appendage are scales, like those their distant ancestors used to measure weight. They are perfectly level, balanced in all ways so that only the impossible sway of this Nomai made of dusty pigment and oils may ever choose.
On one side lays Idaea the sun. It is the heart and life of the clan as they know it. The sun may be pictured, but within that sun is every Nomai and his descendants. On the other side lays Pye The Eye. The mystery his clan was so driven to find that they would have destroyed The Sun with barely a thought.
---
Idea painted the mural himself ages ago, when the station was still being constructed back on Giant’s deep. It had been a long day, and his mind was wandering, so he slipped from his home on Brittle Hollow to visit the construction yard. It hadn’t been dark – the sun always cast a glow on the cloudy planet – so when he’d found a wall, with paints next to it, he did what he had always done when stressed. He painted. He painted his Nomai, indiscernible despite him knowing their name. He painted the appendage, pointing out towards the future. Even now though, Idea still remembered how wrong it had looked. Incomplete in a way he couldn’t get past.
Pye had found him at the start of the next cycle, staring at the mural on the verge of tears. She had walked up behind him, leary eyed and bleating out yawns, before coming to a sudden halt and letting her thougths be known without a thought, like always.
It’s gorgeous, but isn’t it missing something?
As always, her words had struck straight through Idea’s heart. Of course it was, his art was always missing something. It’s why he never painted publicly like that. In that moment he’d been so upset. Idea remembered being ready to yell and scream and chuck his paints into the water. But instead, Idea pickup his brush gingerly from the tensed appendage and gave a slight giggle.
It’s our station, why don’t I add something to the mural too?
And without a word she’d clambered up the wall, somehow trusting Idea’s horribly attached gravity crystal, and began painting. Idaea should’ve stopped her. Should’ve dragged her down like he would Ramie or Poke, but he didn’t. The light of Giant’s Deep dimmed only once before she finished – remarkably quickly to get anything done, truly, and she jumped off, landing with an ungraceful stumble and surprising a snort from Idea. Still, even seeing it freshly he’d wanted to cry.
On the wall, where his mural had once stood incomplete, was a finished piece. Dangling from the towering Nomai’s outstretched limb were those cursed scales. Balancing all of their Clan against some ancient mystery Idaea was quickly losing hope in.
He had wanted to refuse. To shove it in the water and let the fresh paint wash away, to scream at Pye and refuse to let the station be built. But, even then, he knew he’d never do that. He couldn’t say no to Pye. Not now and not ever. And she didn’t even know what she’d done this time. It was true irony, really. They’d been arguing and debating for cycles now about the project‘s ethics. How no-one should hold the power to tip those scales. In fact, Idea had used those exact words just the day before this.
He’d been so frustrated he’d stormed off Brittle Hollow. He’d come here. He’d painted Pye as he knew her – determined and stubborn and impossible to work with in a way he hated to enjoy. He’d shown her gazing at the future. Idea had known he’d give in eventually – with Pye he always did – but for the time he’d just wanted to enjoy the moment of painting her.
Then she’d shown up, and with her normal flourish she’d given herself that power. The power to tilt the impossible scales.
---
That had been that too, Idea’s squeezed eyes snap up at the thought. He’d maintained his reluctance and issue with the project, but he’d never truly pushed again.
With a sigh the Nomai stands, brushing dust from the knees of his suit. He shouldn’t be upset, Idea knows that. He had never truly wanted to blow up the sun, and no he never would have to. Still, Pye’s distraught face, and the idea that the Eye was now lost. Those pills are a difficult swallow.
He fumbles his way to a bench that gazes out the glass coating the bottom of the station. This had been Pye’s idea, a truce and a gift she had said. A way for him to gaze out onto what he didn’t truly wish to destroy, as he does now. He sits heavily, clipping a hip on the projection stone beside him as he thinks. His helmet now sits next to him, providing some needed fresh air.
Pye and him had failed. That new comet is a distraction for her but nothing more. She’d be back to the station after. Idea’s resolve hardened as he thought. The Sun Station had failed, but he and Pye would not. His wished now contained nothing but more time with Pye, the thought of separating too painful to truly entertain.
Thumbing the communication plate he makes to stand. He wishes to visit her on the comet, to convince her the sun station and they can work. He never gats the chance.
Idea feels nothing. In one moment the Nomai, sits, lower appendages tensed and ready to stand. In the next his place is taken by crystals. Crystals on stone, covering his paint. Crystals on glass, covering his view. And crystals on bone, covering him.