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“If you had to save the world, could you do it?” Nery asks Olive, sitting on a rock.
Olive thinks long…
“Not by myself.”
“Exactly!” Nery exclaims, assured by something, but he doesn’t know the same thing Olive means.
The night is dark. Black, and though they sit close, close to the globe of window, all they see are shadows.
Olive looks to the stars, but suspects Nery is not making up a story.
“Not even there,” he says with a smile not seen, “Can the stars save anything.”
Nery’s shadow cranes towards him.
“What do you mean?!” he asks slightly offended, “The stars are everything.”
“Nery,” he says with fondness, the most spirited of the Nightlings, “I like to do this thing, where I stare past the stars. Or at least try to.”
The irony. Saying this to someone who can literally see past the stars.
“Well, I will try that.”
He sits on the slab of rock just above his friend. Who makes up fun games and weird concepts.
Olive and Nery stare at the sky. In this state, Nery expects to have a spiritual experience, but nothing happens. Just stars. A wide band of stars. He looks at Olive to see if he’s doing things right, but it is too dark to see.
But he can feel, though Olive is not of his people, his serenity.
His question still wasn’t answered. He wonders what swirls through Olive’s head. He always seems to have the right words.
But he doesn’t ask, so he doesn’t tell him.
“Let’s go out into the ocean.” Olive says after a long moment.
“You know I will never deny that.”
They descend past the cliff. Toward the water and the music.
