I heave a sigh, and let my head rest upon my knees. “It’s done,” I let the words fall into silence.

“It’s done,” Syl agrees, and squeezes my shoulder.

I hug myself a little bit tighter. The soft happiness of my body is a nice stirring at the back of my mind, but it seems so pitiful. Except...

I shake my head. “We need to get this all done, then, because you have a date to get to!” I stand up, and once more start the transmission. “This is Watch Guardian Ash. Thank you, Vilav, and Speakers Cparitay and Itacpekrri, as well as all of your crews. You have saved our lives. As much as I wish it had not been necessary, it is still the truth. I hope this day may be a sign of what is to come, as we have worked together to defeat a threat. Our watch shift will soon end, so we might not speak again, but it has been an honour, and a pleasure, to get to know you, Spwihicpéa.”

“Thank you,” Sylvia adds, just before I close the signal. The distance that they put on will necessitate a certain delay, of course, but it will be relatively short. I think. I’ve let my grasp on the time-distance slip a little bit, with the sight of the fighting.

We start to wait, but before our signal can even arrive, we start to see a barrage of signals between the ships now gathering. We could begin to listen and discern what is going on, but it takes a moment for us to find Vilav’s ship, to know the prime two to listen to – there are far too many signals being thrown to listen to them all, not while keeping up to the realtime of the action.

And then the door opens, and the two distilled essense of normal blokes file in once again.

“Heyy,” I cheer, “You’re just in time to be on the sideline, listening to the start of the first real talks between humans and the Spwihicpéa! Have fun, now,” I grin.

“You know, Bob,” one of them addresses the other, “I think we should ask for a transfer to a different shift, this one sucks.”

== * ==

Sylvia is off on her date. I’m not sure where they went, but to make sure they have room, I made my way outside of the prebuilt infrastructure of the base, and out into the gardens right outside. It is cool, but sunny. Perfectly comfortable, in other words.

I did fetch my tablet, before I came out here. I am not entirely sure what I am going to do, but the idea of seeing if there are more stories around like the one Sylvie had shared with me... that idea is catching a warmth in my heart in a way that I think I want right now.

“And so this moment closes,” I whisper, my voice getting lost amidst the rustling of leaves, “A peace started through cooperation, even if that cooperation was a moment of war.”

My tablet bleeped from under my arm, and I flip it out to see what it wants. Apparently, there is a message that the watch has transferred along to me.

I look around to see if I would be disturbing anyone around me, and, satisfied, hit the play button.

“Watch Guardian Ash,” comes the double-layered transmission from the Spwihicpéa, “You speak, and spoke, with skill and surety. You have shown your kind well. I speak only for myself, but I can only hope that the diplomats that are chosen can guide our two, alongside the Many, as safely as you have guided the few here. I shall remember you, and speak of you again.”

As the transmission closes, the world around me fades into a pause once more. A dialogue pops up.

“Congratulations!” I read it out loud, because why not and my voice is kinda nice, you know? “You got ending [A-4b]: A Certain Peace.”

There’s a whole bunch more text there, but I mostly just skim it, seeing what sort of end screen this is.

At the bottom are two buttons. “Save state and leave game,” and “Continue playing.”

I hestitate between the choice. The save-and-leave option explicitly would allow resuming from the state that was being saved. And I knew I kinda wanted to see some more days of this.

But my journey was barely begun. I had time.

I left the game, and stood once more amongst the various small huts which marked the different games that were available.

My body is as it should be. As it is now in real life. I start walking, and taking such a simple motion helps. Each step like a day of a watch. Each step like the twists of life. Sometimes you step weirdly on a pebble. Sometimes, at least in games, aliens show up at the door. Sometimes, a normal day turns out to be the moment of realisation.

I still have to choose a name, I remember suddenly.

I pause in my walking, and take a great breath, feeling the air flood the deepest corners of my lungs, and then flow back out.

I am good at astrogation. I have a lot of training and practice in it.

There is a small part of me which loves the little half-truth of “I can fly!” which it allows me.

I keep walking.

“Computer, can you give me a list of bird-adjacent names?” I ask, hesitantly because my name should be my own thing, right?

A little pedestal with a book on it appears beside my path, and I pick it up, still walking. The list of names is really long, because at this point, most nouns have been used by someone as a name. But the list also lets me cull the more noun-as-name suggestions, and after I’ve cut out the surprisingly extensive and least useful noun-most 15% on the name-noun continuum, I flip through the book, trying to see anything that might click.

There’s some cool names that people have used. Also, a lot of variety.

Are any of these names me?

At some point, most of them could be.

“Dove,” I read aloud. It seems weirdly enticing. Though, I’ve known enough Dovs that it feels weirdly not me-enough.. But I see the genus of birds its tied to, and I know what my name is. None of the other options seem like they could fit, now. Well, maybe some of them could?

I suppose most people have middle names.

But I am a Columba.

I look up at the sky, where the starscape is shown in better-than-natural acuity. I spot Jupiter with its cluster of bright moons, and the sweep of the milky limb just past them.

I think it is time to set a new highscore in a bowling tournament, and this time, I’ll know what name I’m putting down beforehand.

...

Thinking about it, I’m kinda surprised I hadn’t realised something was up with my identity sooner than I did.

Foundling_Fae

And thus, this arc comes to a close. I'm sorry if you were following it as it was posted, because I was too brave with posting it at first and then didn't keep up the pace I needed! But, now, I want to thank you for reading it. <3

I'll be back with more writings, and perhaps Columba will get some more of her adventures written somewhere along the line.

Take care of yourselves. And take care to be yourself. <3 You're more important than you know.