The hardest person to convince is often yourself.
Sensing Kiperina's disappointment, Name Day finally speaks up.
Name Day: About that ...
Hissabeth: I don't know.
The blunt reply causes him to bite his tongue and listen.
Hissabeth: When I heard about my parents' deaths, I was just stepping onto the bus to Laplace. I felt like I had no time to even think about it.
Hissabeth: I guess I mistook that for acceptance. After all, there's nothing I could do to change it.
Hissabeth: Then about three months later, I broke my pen while writing a research log.
Hissabeth: I cried for 40 hours. FORTY HOURS. And I'm not exaggerating. I'm grateful my roommate didn't have me committed.
Kiperina: Was it your parents' pen?
The very idea of Hissabeth crying seems almost impossible to imagine. She cuts off the thought before it turns impolite.
Hissabeth: Nah. Just an ordinary Laplace office pen. They give them out by the box load.
Hissabeth: But back home when I broke something, my parents would tease me for being careless, and then we would find a new one together.
Hissabeth: You can't really accept a thing like this. The only thing you can do is put your pain aside and find something to do with yourself.
Hissabeth: Even if it's just making a ball of tape. Just wrap a ball, round and round, over and over, until you've forgotten what it even looked like inside.
Kiperina: Maybe that is something I can try.
The little astronaut nods solemnly.
Hissabeth: Cool, you should. I'm speaking from my experience. You know, when you're young, everything bad seems like the end of the world. Forgetting your homework might as well be the apocalypse.
She's right. Name Day swallows the words he had meant to use to lighten the mood.
He's heard enough of them before. He's even asked himself the same.
Avgust: Are you going home, Mr. Raccoon?
Name Day: No, I'm heading out for a mission.
Avgust: Vila said it's a time that you're familiar with, but that you didn't ever plan on going back.
Avgust: I know Vila had another home before she moved to Rayashki. You must have one too!
Avgust: What was it like? Does it snow there?
Name Day: Yes. It snowed there, so much that it made the trees sag and covered up your footprints as soon as you walked past.
Name Day: When the Volkhov froze over, my sister and I would go and fish from holes we cut in the ice.
Avgust: Comrade Pasono once fell in the ice doing that. We didn't see him at school for weeks.
Name Day: Playing on the ice can be dangerous, little Avgust.
Legend has it that girls who drown become Rusalki. He asked Vila once, and she confirmed it was only a myth.
Most stories are like that, heavily embellished in the retelling.
To hold the boy's drifting thoughts or rein in his own memories, he squats down until his head is level with the sunflower.
Name Day: But it's all gone now. No matter the era, even if I went back to that little dot on the map, it would never be the same.
Avgust: Like Rayashki.
Name Day: Just like Rayashki.
Another patch of land whose story was lost to the "Storm." Remembered only by the few lucky enough to have lived there.
He tries to pull the topic back before it veers somewhere neither of them can handle.
Name Day: That is why we must stay alive, then things will work out some day.
???: Lyonya, stay alive. That's the most important thing.
???: Keep going. Follow the route I told you. Never look back.
Foundation Registrar: Being certified as capable for an independent field mission means you're an official Foundation member. Congrats in advance.
Foundation Registrar: Most people here use an alias, though it's all up to you. Just make sure you pick a good one. It's not easy to change once it's confirmed.
Leonid: I see. Thank you for telling me.
The day he left home came close to another date soon to be celebrated.
That's it.
He hands over his application form.
Foundation Registrar: Let me check. Alright, no problem.
Foundation Registrar: The "Storm" has made everyone's life harder here. The Foundation is always in need of more manpower, and in need of honest men like you even more so.
Foundation Registrar: Welcome to the St. Pavlov Foundation Far East Branch, Mr. Name Day.
A name means existence.
What is hard to accept? Knowing that your city can't be found on any map, or that city still shares its name but has changed entirely.
He's tried before, but his arcane skill doesn't work on living beings. That fleeting glow he remembers is probably just an illusion.
Avgust: You're thinking about something. Missing your home again, yes?
Avgust: It's okay. Vila said as long as we pay attention in class and keep learning, we will be able to rebuild Rayashki in the future.
Avgust: We will rebuild it as long as each and every comrade keeps that goal in their mind, and I will never forget.
The sunflower tilts its head. The boy mimics it, then he pats his friend's shoulder, offering a little encouragement.
Avgust: You can do it, Comrade Raccoon.
Name Day: Thank you very, very much, Comrade Avgust.
Name Day is still lost in thought as the aurora begins to spill across the sky.
It follows its own patterns, constant and resplendent, existing without the need for names.
Nothing in nature is made for humanity.
Hissabeth: Come here, Alia. You can have the best seat.
Kiperina: Oh, I think for now, I'd prefer to be called Kiperina.
She mutters something more under her breath but still finds herself sitting in the offered spot.
Hissabeth: Hurry up. You don't get an aurora like this every night.
Hissabeth: You need those charged particles up there for your arcane skill.
Kiperina: I thought we were here for a vacation.
Hissabeth: It can be more than one thing. You do need this though.
She finds a suitable rock to sit on and brushes the dust off the stones beside her for Kiperina and Voyager.
Hissabeth: Stay calm. Walking in space is definitely going to be easier than walking a tightrope.
Hissabeth: There's no absolute direction up there. Up or down depends on the reference you choose.
Hissabeth: In short, there's no "falling down."
Kiperina nods seriously.
Kiperina: Tomorrow, no, the day after tomorrow, I'll be up there drifting above the Earth with the stars.
Kiperina: I wonder if they'll feel warm to the touch.
Whether from nerves or the night wind, she shivers.
Hissabeth opens her arms wide to pull both girls into a huddle.
Kiperina: The night is so cold. Back with the Utrennyaya, on nights like this, I would sneak into the pens and sleep beside Masha—the bear cub I took care of. She was so warm to cuddle.
Kiperina: And now I'm here, huddled with all of you. Oh, sorry, I'm not suggesting you remind me of bears.
Kiperina: It just feels safe.
Name Day: There were times, during the coldest winter nights, that my siblings and I would cuddle up with the stray dogs to keep ourselves warm.
Han Zhang: Hold on. You people don't just hibernate through the winter? You're missing out.
This is the first time their little team has sat together without the mission on their minds, chatting instead about past lives and faraway memories.
Before she realizes it, sleepiness sneaks up on Kiperina.
She stands to shake off her sudden drowsiness, and Hissabeth rises with her.
Hissabeth: Alright, we should head back. We don't want our little astronaut to be too tired.
Han Zhang: Hey, you think I don't see what you're doing? You haven't told us your story yet.
Han Zhang: It's been on my mind since I first got here: why would you do all this? You don't strike me as the hopeless dreamer type.
Hissabeth: I don't? Well, I should make more of an effort to match the stereotype.
She tilts her head just enough to catch the dozing little snake and nudge it back onto her shoulder.
Hissabeth: It's not so dreamy though. I just wanna know the answers. Where do we come from and how things will end?
Hissabeth: What? Not convincing enough?
Hissabeth: Perhaps you want something more in-depth?
Hissabeth: Way back when, before all this, Pointer and I were being driven mad by work, we would walk out here and there was something she would say to me.
She narrows her eyes, watching the shifting curtains of light with interest.
High-energy solar particles, shaped by Earth's magnetic field, dance across the sky in colors visible to the naked eye.
If you listen closely, you might even hear their faint crackling.
Hissabeth: Language is a tool that permits us to describe how the universe was created and how it will end.
Hissabeth: Through it, we reflect on our existence. In order to understand eternity, we must first understand death and impermanence.
After a small shake of her head, she regains her usual casual tone.
Hissabeth: What do you think? Good impression of her, non? Everyone says it's my best.
The aurora hanging high above the sky shines down at the people below. Brilliant beams fall, blurring the edge between snow and sky and softening every expression into something unreadable.
Hissabeth's voice feels like it's coming from far away.
Hissabeth: Tomorrow might be our last free day before the "Storm." I guess it's fitting then to ask the age-old question:
Hissabeth: If tomorrow was the last day of your life, what would you do?
