Quick note that has nothing to do with anything- I adore Mordant and Solneki to bits, but they seriously need to stop having sex on the job. Also, it's a shame Brenon is straight like a pole.
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It was darker than usual, which meant it had to be night. Possibly an eclipse, but probably night. Walker told himself he was only out to make sure Stella wasn't thinking of defecting. No other reason, of course.
The moon was full. Sometimes the clouds reached so high they fell behind the moon; maybe it was that something was pulling the moon closer to the earth; maybe it was the end of the world, and the sky was falling; maybe it was just a trick of the mind to make up for the darkness.
They were so accustomed to the darkness, though.
"You didn't have to follow me out here- we both know it. Those two warm ones you set on me, the ones with the strange names, they're more than sufficient to keep an eye on me, even if they are alive. They're bright- the angry one, especially. You know that, though, don't you? They're special, I guess, but I am too." Stella never stopped talking. Someone had to be with her at all times, Walker told himself. There was no telling what she'd say or who she'd say it to. Mordant and Solneki had to sleep eventually (usually with each other) and she kept odd hours, so it was only natural that he follow her out onto the roof.
"You're so quiet! And you've done so many horrible things, or so they've said. Prostitutes, chemists, bodyguards- you've torn them apart for the slightest misstep. Our whole world fears you, Walker. You've got the power of death over the dead. The living tell stories about you to frighten their children, and the cold keep an eye open when they sleep to watch for your footsteps." She laughed, and it was a little like hearing the sun rise, if such a thing were possible. "Because we'd see your footsteps before we'd hear them, and no one can see a footstep, so we're all doomed."
She was standing close to the edge with her face tilted upwards to catch the moonlight in her glasses. She moved with surprising confidence for one without eyes. "I can see your footsteps, though. I can't hear them- no one can, except maybe the Voyance himself, but I doubt that- but I can see your footsteps. I can see lots of things. I remind you of someone, don't I?"
Walker frowned. She spoke in circles, dizzying like the way she danced in the moonlight. "How should I know?" He answered her because she was Stella, and maybe she did remind him of something.
"I don't know. I thought, once, about looking into the records to find my old family, but they wouldn't care to see me now. I did look up my death certificate- my family was poor, dirt poor, too poor to afford my reconstitution. I don't know why I exist; I dream everything else, but not that. You could look into the records, couldn't you? To find out who I remind you of?"
He looked away from her endlessly spinning form and stared at the gravel. "No. I don't exist in the records- you are very, very young."
She laughed. "I wonder- how old do you have to be, to not exist? How old...how much have you forgotten, Walker? I wonder, I do."
"I was the first." It was the only thing he knew aside from the darkness.
"I could remember for you, would you like that? I could try, I could...nights like these, all I see are the memories of the long dead, the old living. I can remember everything but my own memories- the air is thick with them, when the silence is this heavy and the moon is this low.
"I can feel the moon, but you aren't surprised."
She stopped spinning and seemed to be staring at him. Walker grabbed her by the shoulders; he'd moved too fast to see, even if she could have. "I was the first. Do you understand what that means?" He never used to talk this much, he is sure of it.
"Ah..." Her voice dropped an octave and a half, and her body went limp in his hands. "The moon was full that night, don't you remember? It had stopped raining, and I laughed because the moon was full and I loved you more than I could stand. I loved you. I didn't know what love was, much less how to love anyone but myself and yet I still loved you.
"The moon was full and you made me laugh and I loved you for it, loved you so much I killed you. Don't you remember?"
She returned to herself slowly and eased into Walker's embrace just as slowly, trembling like something small and living. "I was the first, Stella. All I can remember is pain." He wanted her to know, that was all. He wasn't speaking because he knew she feared the silence as much as he feared her memories. She needed to know.
That was all.
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