Gemini turned restlessly in her bed. In flight the deck of the Thunder's Boon was remarkably even-keeled and even in all her years she had never quite gotten used to it. She missed that about travelling the open seas, rather than streaking through the sky. The salty, crisp breeze, the swaying of a ship rocking you gently to sleep as you sailed towards the nearest horizon. That said, the atmosphere aboard tonight was nothing if not pleasant. A cool breeze drifted in through the same window through which moonlight lazily lit a portion of her cabin.
They had a new shipment of goods due to Vivinia's New Troska in the morning, and with the Coterie's territory ever encroaching across the rest of Welnostra, finding merchants, let alone ports, sympathetic to their cause was ever more difficult.
Running late she'd given orders to fly through the night. It seemed like that was all she was doing lately: worrying about others, Vivinia, Kosh, old friends, contemporaries, always flitting this way and that to solve some new crisis, defeat some new threat. Even as an immortal she was thankful she'd never been "gifted" a seer's eyes. Even though she had no issue helping, she'd seen what had happened to Vivinia with the re-ignition of his abilities. The family man was gone more often than not now. Don't get me wrong, she thought, he was and always would be a doting father and loving husband, but he seemed so trapped by his sense of duty and responsibility. If she were in his place she often wondered if she would make the same choices.
And then there was Kosh, a veritable Ghost in the Machine, a God of Clockwork and magic, or to put it more simply, the best friend she'd ever had. Both being immortals, their friendship stretched all the way back to the first academy, THE Academy, on Troska. Her arrival as a naive child, eager to learn more about the world and the ways of magic, her life an odd parallel to Kosh's creation by Jessera, Kosh being, at least in some small way, a child himself, but created more as a tool in the then unspoken fight between the mad seer and the Ancients. Then again, she thought, we were all Jessera's tools, weren't we? Failed or successful experiments all on a journey towards midnight on her doomsday clock. Still, it was simpler then. Gemini had been lonely, and whereas Vivinia was more interested in talking (boasting, mostly) Kosh had been more interested in listening.
It didn't take long for her to love spending time with him. Life through his fascinated eyes was so new and exciting, and she quickly realized how much she took for granted. Looking back she'd been such a fool in her early days at the Academy, thinking of her interactions with the infiltrator. In her defense, she had no idea what they had been up against, Jessera was such a megalomaniac that not only did she have to defeat the "damned" Ancients, but it had to be her idea how, too.
She chuckled at that thought. Sarith certainly showed you, hadn't he Jessera? Her thoughts drifted back to Kosh, and everything he had done for her back then, saving her life, despite her dismissal of him as some automaton. Mistakes were made, and thankfully, out of them, she grew, as did their friendship. Jessera's fight escalated, and eventually the invasion was defeated, and since... Well, since then some things change while others never seem to. As the years, no, centuries, drew on, her and Kosh saw less and less of each other. Another seer with an inflated sense of duty she imagined. Still, she missed him, and wondered what might have been.
There was a small shift in the air of her cabin, almost imperceptible, a gentle electricity hummed through the space before it was gone, leaving Gemini with a distantly familiar feeling. She turned once again in her bed, shifting satin pillows and flowing sheets (Being a captain does have its perks), to find, to her great surprise, Kosh, laying beside her. She must have looked aghast as he gazed back at her mirthfully.
"Nice to see you haven't changed a bit," Kosh chuckled, his very manner belying a soft power. Without a word Gemini reached out and slapped him with a slightly frayed satin pillow.
"It's been nearly a hundred years since your last visit, metalhead, least you could do is knock." Still, she smiled, never feeling uncomfortable in the presence of her old friend.
"And miss the chance to see that look on your face? Never," Kosh's laugh was soft, yet shook the bed. Gemini couldn't help but laugh. After they shared the moment, his gravelly voice rumbled, "I know it has been a long time, but to us a century is the blink of an eye."
Gemini saddened, "You might think that, but even immortality is no cure for loneliness. If anything, it's all the worse having to make new friends, watch them grow, age... Comfort them as they pass and begin it all over again. Kosh, you know I've longed for you to join me, to stay..."
Kosh's face grew resigned, but empathetic, "Yes... I, too, long for that. Wherever I am, even in battle, it is you and the millennia of memories I look to in order to persevere through whatever fight I find myself in. It's always you."
"I know that," Gemini said quietly, tears beginning to well up in her eyes, "I just wish things were different, that's all. What we have, could be so much more... What we have-"
