Iron Heart

If the universe were static, I could stand anywhere in this world and I swear my line of sight would end on you. I swear I'd find you in the dark.

Because you deserve to be known, in whatever capacity you wish. I am trying to become a person who deserves to know you. I want that more than anything.

Strength isn’t measured by the ability to cause harm.

You keep comparing yourself to a book. That is not how I see you. If I want to learn about you, it’s not for...pleasure, or leisure, or the desired mastery of a subject. I am not trying to learn you like a language. I am trying, Ayla, to learn you like a person. Like people do, with the knowledge that I will never know everything. That it is impossible to know everything. Because you deserve to be known, in whatever capacity you wish. I am trying to become a person who deserves to know you.

I told you once I’m not a book to be read,” Ayla continued. “I take it back. I’m a book. Read me.

A tiny pathetic thought: the warmth of Ayla's touch rivaled the afternoon sun.

Wars were won by whichever side caused the most suffering. How was that something to be proud of?

A law for a paradox. I’ll trade you. We believe the Universe birthed an infinite number of stars. By this logic, you could stand anywhere in this world and look up at the night sky and your line of sight would inevitably end on a star. By this logic, the night sky shouldn’t be dark at all; it should be a blinding wash of starlight. Therein lies the paradox. The problem is the assumption that the Universe is static, unmoving; that every star has always occupied the same space in our sky. The paradox doesn’t account for the fact that the Universe, like all things, was born and has been growing ever since. Expanding outward—pushing, pulling, as you told me. Celestial bodies floating in a black sea, carried by a current older than life. Drifting farther and farther apart. The nature of the Universe is that everything inside it becomes lonelier and lonelier and lonelier. Some nights I can think of nothing else, and nothing more terrifying. Some nights I lie awake, thinking of this, and it makes me unspeakably sad. Not as often, these days. Because it’s you. It’s you, the wash of starlight, the old paradox: if the Universe were static, I could stand anywhere in this world and I swear my line of sight would end on you. I swear I’d find you in the dark.

If we look only at the past, we lose sight of the future. And what a future it could be.

Ayla, she had written once. I could stand anywhere in this world and I swear my line of sight would end on you. I swear I’d find you in the dark.

I like knowing there’s certain laws in the universe, Ayla’s father had said once, a very long time ago, before everything. You can’t count on much. Can’t trust most things to stay solid. But there is always some sort of force at work. Even way out there past the sky, so far away that we can’t even imagine it, things work the same. Your mother would explain it better. Everything is just bodies in motion, bodies in orbit, just like here. Pushing and pulling. You know what that’s called? The law of falling.

There was no room inside her for emotions like this. For yearning like this. For loneliness like this. But she was so human-shaped. She was so human-shaped. How could she live in this vessel and not feel any attachment to the world, to its people?

Crier looked at her, and smiled. Wide and bright as the whole damn sky.

The wound heals over. You adjust to this new way of moving through the world. But it always aches, and not just physically, and you never forget what was lost.

Do wolves concern themselves with the slaughter of sheep?

They melted into a series of deep, lush kisses, hot and dizzying and endless, lips moving together, Crier’s mouth opening beneath Ayla’s, the taste of her like summer rain. Ayla pushed into her over and over again, taking her mouth, already addicted to this, to her, to Crier, everything about her, taste and scent and the warmth of her skin under Ayla’s hands.

My hear, if I have one, is a house of empty rooms and empty halls. My thoughts and footsteps echo. Sometimes I feel like a guest in the house of myself. But sometimes, someone’s footsteps cross my floor, and that is enough. These days, I luxuriate in my loneliness. I walk through my empty halls naked and singing.

They were still holding hands. They hadn’t let go, not even once. Ayla’s hand was sweaty; there was dirt and sweat and probably blood slicking their palms, but she didn’t want to lose this point of contact. This point of warmth, solidity, in the middle of a huge and frightening thing. The machinery of war.

Did Automae . . . feel things like that? Could an Automa girl feel that tug in her lower belly, that fishhook pull, making her want more, want harder, want deeper, want sweeter? Want hands in her hair, on her waist, on her hips, want—? Don’t go there, Ayla told herself, but she couldn’t help it. Yesterday afternoon in the river, she had seen the whole of Crier’s body, and the yearning that drummed through her wasn’t anything she’d felt before, and her own reaction wasn’t anything she’d felt before, the oceanic pulse between her hips, the things she wanted. Skin on skin, fingers intertwined. She’d tracked the drops of water trailing down Crier’s throat, her collarbone, the curve of her back, down her bare legs when she climbed back up onto the riverbank, and looking hadn’t felt like enough. Did Crier feel the same? Could Crier feel the same? Maybe Ayla already knew the answer. The way Crier had touched her in Elderell, hands flying from Ayla’s arms to her face, fingers raking through her hair, lips parting . . .

Crier wasn’t a book or a map or anyth8ing else that could be read once and known in its entirety. Nothing finite like that. There was no beginning to her, no end, no parameters; her body was not the truth of her; Ayla knew that Crier herself was something as wide and endless as the ice fields or the black sea or the evening sky, just as the first stars were beginning to appear. Those first pinpricks of light.

It is impossible for a tree to grow without roots. The same law applies to civilization. No society is conjured from thin air; it is the nature of societies to grow, Organically, from that which came before. To reject all forms of Human society is to reject centuries of knowledge, of accumulated thoughts, of triumphs we could learn from defeats we could avoid, Yes, we have touched the stars--but we are still connected deeply to the earth. We must not forget. We must not deny our roots in the existence of Humankind; instead, we must take that existence and improve upon it. Is that not the reason for our Creation? Is that not why we were Made?

there are still things worth living for.

Cruelty was wasted on the kind.

From light you were born, and to light you shall return. Go now into the stars; they've been waiting for you.

It’s you, the wash of starlight, the old paradox: if the Universe were static, I could stand anywhere in this world and I swear my line of sight would end on you. I swear I’d find you in the dark.

Since— Midnight. Moonlight. Soft bed, softer blankets. Dark hair spilled across the pillow. A body beside her own, breathing too slow to be human.

There was no beginning to her, no end, no parameters; her body was not the truth of her;

From light you were born and to light you shall return. Go now into the stars. They've been waiting for you.

Her mind had gone strangely quiet. She felt so removed from her body, as if she had retreated into some faraway corner of her own head, somewhere soft and soundless. Her body was doing things and she was only watching, a distant observer, curious to see what happened next.