Hello, Lover

17/788/14 s.d.

Hello, Lover

So many things have happened, Lover, in so little time.

Upon accepting the Daedalus contract after my last correspondence with you, I have left the city, our beloved Kattigara, and through my contract, have been granted passage on a slow but steady journey through the Alecta Port, then across the great Andromeda and finally to the Milky Way.

I am told that it will take many days to arrive at Andromeda alone, but the trip after that is mostly a mystery to me. When I ask the sailors and the crew, they either don't know or refuse to say.

Mysterious, this Daedalus Foundation, I have learned little about them and despite reading their contract through and through I have found nothing of substance about the company itself. There is no sign of ill will in the contract, I wouldn't have taken it if there was; still, their motives are fuzzy to me; every day we draw closer, yet the truth seems to be one step ahead, and I am growing restless with both anticipation and trepidation at the chase of it.

Still, Lover, these days are calm for me. I have little to do on the ship beyond the occasional participation in their organized activities. I spend most of my time in the highest viewing gallery—they call it the Upper Room—where the universe pours in through the glass and every time I can't help but drink in the view like i've never seen it before. I know you will agree when I say that the beauty of Alecta simply never ceases.

There are many others on the ship, families moving from one port to another, honeymooners and merchants, businessmen with their keen eyes. I have exchanged pleasantries with most of them, though nothing beyond little conversations with little words and smiles as we pass in the hallways. In these days to come I am sure we will all grow familiar, but for now I find I am enjoying the quiet and the calm.

Still, sometimes the silence hurts. I am homesick, I think, for the noise and our own bed and the freedom to steal whichever one of your hoodies I wanted. Now, the bed is foreign, the clothes are loosing the smell of you, and I don't know what I will do when you are gone from them entirely.

It gets loud in my head sometimes, Lover. Being without you again has brought me back to my last year in training; you, off on your preliminary mission and me, melancholy in your absence. I was distracted, most of the time, you remember the vigor of graduation year, but I spent the majority of my time with the remainder of our friends, missing you quietly and trying to rein in their crazy schemes just enough to avoid trouble for all of us. The memories are fond, sitting in the common room cooking up devious plans and daring heists. We are lucky, I think, that Chase’s penchant for them never got us into too much trouble. I have the Dean’s personal pocketwatch somewhere in our storage unit on Kattigara, so I suppose that is a testament to his skill. You’d think he was a bank robber rather than a pilot.

Still, in the quiet early mornings of those long days,I used to walk the grounds before breakfast; mostly I went to our spot behind the hangars, but on the beautiful morning of a twin sunrise I risked sneaking up to the old lighthouse. Alone on this ship, I find myself walking to the Lower Room, another viewing platform, and watching the nearby planets and their moons.

These are the times where I let myself miss you most, a lighthouse at sunrise and a lower deck filled with planets.

I watch the suns and the moons rise and fall, always on their way back to each other, and I am reminded that I, too, am always on my way back to you.

Forever yours,

V.

xxxxxxxxxx

serpens: 1, 2, 3

icarus: 1, 2

hello, lover playlist