Chapter Text
Our dead are never
dead to us, until
we have forgotten them.
- George Eliot
"I noticed you didn't finish the movie last night," Sniff said quietly as they walked out of Advanced Subspace Geometry.
He ignored her, zooming in on a specific question for their math homework. "Do you know how to do problem forty-seven?"
Sniff gave him a wry look. "I'm not stupid," she said. "You showed me how to do that problem around minute twenty-three." Tommy frowned at her. "Stop avoiding the question."
He sighed, slumping slightly as they walked into one of the many courtyards. This one was less of a courtyard, as it faced the Golden Gate Bridge in all its gloriousness. Drista and Lani were already waiting for them, the shorter Shulker girl bearing tins of lunches. Initially, Sniff had refused the food that Karl cooked for them daily but had caved when she'd met the doe-eyed Human—especially since Sapnap had been glaring behind him, daring her to refuse.
"It's..." he said. "Complicated."
"Most things are," Sniff said, with a twist of her mouth.
"That movie reminds me of things I'd rather stay in the past," he admitted slowly.
Sniff slowed down. "Ah," she said. "I see. I suppose I share that statement. There are certain movies that I...abstain from seeing." She hesitated. "Some might say that I get flashbacks."
"Some might say that," he said with a slight shrug, biting his tongue from asking. She wasn't asking him—he had no right to return the favor. "I just think they're day-mares."
"What?"
"Nightmares, but in the day, and they're set off by current events."
"...that's just PTSD, Tommy."
"I don't have PTSD."
"The first stage of grief is denial." Now she sounded like Purpled.
"I'm not grieving!" he snarled, and Sniff laughed lightly.
"Grieving?" Lani asked, catching the tail end of their conversation. "Who's grieving? I know I sure am, after fucking Gale ." She made a face. "Fucker."
"What's wrong with Gale?" Tommy asked sincerely. "He seemed like an okay guy."
"He's a bitch," Lani said.
Tommy swallowed. "Ah. I see." He really didn't.
"You should."
"He's only a bitch in the other movies," Drista said, rolling her eyes as she handed Sniff and Tommy their tins. Tommy took his and opened it, tilting his head as he found teriyaki—Lani mouthed tofu when he raised an eyebrow at her—and rice. "He uh—well, you didn't end up watching the rest of the movie, did you?" Tommy shook his head. "Yeah, basically Katniss finds Peeta, and they put on this 'show'—" she made air quotes. "—but it's only sort of a show? Because Peeta is in love with Katniss? 'Cause the announcer guy says that two people can win if they're both from the same district, 'cept Peeta is dying in a cave—" Tommy flinched violently and played it off as a bug, slapping his neck. "—so they gotta play their part of star-crossed lovers, which they do pretty well until the airdrop sends soup. Then Katniss has to go to the Cornucopia to get actual medicine, and Rue's district partner saves her life from Clove."
"That's the knife girl," Sniff told him, stuffing rice into her own mouth as they sat below one of the trees, safe from the heat of the sun. Other students milled around—giving them looks because, well, it was them, but not near enough to hear their conversation. "She would have won had Katniss not had plot armor."
"Stop breaking the fourth wall," Drista snorted. "Anyway, Katniss gets the medicine, people die, blah blah blah. There's a whole-ass chase scene as the Capitol tries to whittle down the numbers, and eventually, it's only Katniss and Peeta left standing."
"And then they change the rules," Lani said quietly. "They make it so only one can win."
"Katniss threatens suicide," Sniff finished cheerfully. "With Peeta, I mean. So they let her and Peeta win that way they have winners, and the two of them are crowned champions of the seventy-fourth annual Hunger Games."
Tommy didn't think he liked that story. It was nothing like his own, and it sounded interesting enough—but he did not like that story because that government controlled the world, and children were forced to fight to the death for sport.
It was nothing like his own story, because of course, he'd never had to fight to the death—and never would, preferably—but the children that died reminded him of the Red Planet and Pogtopia and the genocide that followed. The children that were forced into that arena under pain of death—he assumed including the killing of their families—to kill each other, to turn upon each other. They had, too.
They had in Pogtopia as well. Enough to steal food for their little groups that eventually tore each other to scraps. Not enough to kill, though. They were children, but in the end, they all wanted salvation. There was no limit to rescues that could be given; no true winner.
Only two had gotten it.
(Only three had survived his story.)
He finished his rice, smiling at the three girls' conversation, arguing about some romance ship in an old Terran T.V. show that wasn't at all canon, nor would it ever be. He pulled out his datapad once or twice, exchanging a few messages with Tubbo and Purpled and Ranboo—mostly Tubbo, though, because his relationship with the magenta-eyed Human was slightly strained.
Tubbo, much to his surprise, hadn't told anyone. Except for Ranboo, but Ranboo was already aware, and the Enderian had held a conversation with Tommy this morning about the Red Planet. It hadn't been as abrupt as Purpled's had been—obviously, the Human had crossed a line—but Tommy did admit that, deep down, Purpled was probably right.
Very, very deep down. And only partially correct. Not even that much! Just a little bit. Tommy knew that Purpled realized that because while the Human didn't apologize, he had admitted that he'd overstepped his boundaries, which was at least something.
Purpled didn't apologize often, so clearly, the world was ending.
He went to Interspecies Protocol with Sniff after lunch, bidding goodbye to the two girls who were still arguing about the ship name—not a spaceship name, but a relationship name between two fictional men. It didn't make any sense to Tommy, but he didn't question it.
They were learning about Blazeborns this week—apparently, the planet was a monarchy, but not an absolute monarchy—sort of like England on Terra, Tommy learned from Sniff's notes. He sort of zoned out partway through the teacher's lecture, the elderly Kitsune explaining about the science behind the Blazeborn's unique fireproof ability. Tubbo would be more interested in such a subject than him. Sure, Tommy knew about biology—specifically his own—but it wasn't like he was overjoyed learning about it. Or the customs behind the certain fires that the Blazeborn lit on their pyres.
It was his next class that he was genuinely excited for, as he parted ways with Sniff, the girl rolling her eyes and promising to send Tommy her notes for the quiz tomorrow.
He popped into Flight Control with his bag across his shoulders and, for once, his datapad tightly tucked away as he scanned the room, looking at the occupants. They were doing simulators for the first time today, and sometimes Tommy thought that he'd done simulations before he could walk—which, of course, isn't true. Still, he remembered doing simple asteroid ones as one of his earliest memories, so his first one had to be when he was young.
Even Chroma's...relationship with him, as injurious as it had been, had not been able to sway him from his chosen path of a pilot. If Tommy was decent at something, it was being able to discern that he would not let his future career end with an Avian who had committed mass genocide. He would create new memories, and he would make better ones with better people.
The teacher, a male Elytrian who smiled at him affectionately as he entered, told the students—all twenty-three of them—to choose a simulator and create an account. Tommy had never created an account before—he hadn't needed to because his family had had their own aboard the H.M.S Fran. Still, he dutifully followed the teacher's instructions and made the name TommyInnit appear on the class's leaderboard.
"I don't care that you guys are all part of the same side, on the Galactic Rebellion," the Elytrian told them as the last person's name flickered on the leaderboard screen at the front of the class. "This is a competition for the rest of the year. I will teach you the controls if you need me to—which is fine, there's nothing wrong with that—or give you some tips if you wish, but you will be competing for the top three places in the class and out of the top seven, of Flight Control class." Tommy fought to keep the grin off his face. "The computer adjusts to your needs, and you can change the controls around and save them to your account, so when you sign in, the controls become whatever you wish. I won't force you to be on the same one for the sake of fairness . Fairness, in space, does not exist." The Elytrian shook his head, golden feathers ruffling. "Besides, on any starship you find yourself a part of, you can change the controls. Find a setting you like. Use the default setting. I don't care. The simulations change using a very intense A.I. system, and every time you fight the alien races, they learn how you fly."
A female Feline raised her hand, and the Elytrian pointed at her. "Fighting?" she asked.
"You think it would be running, Eci'nyue?" the Elytrian asked, and the Feline slumped slightly—Tommy frowned at her name. It wasn't Human; which was the usual go-to for Feline parents—nor, despite the obvious apostrophe, was it Elytrian. He shook his head, unsure why he wanted to know this so badly. "Sure, there are supply simulations and all that, but we'll do one simulation per class that you can redo as you wish until you're happy with your score. At the end of your class, it will add your highest score on today's simulation to the leaderboards."
"Out of a thousand, right?" Tommy asked.
"That is correct, Mr. Innes. The highest score you can receive is a thousand, though I do not think I have ever had a student get a thousand—" the Elytrian paused, turning a brown eye upon Tommy, who frowned at him. "—well, I suppose, besides your aunt."
"Ah," he said, smirking slightly at Puffy's prowess that had somehow lasted the ages. "She was a great pilot."
"Very bright student," the Elytrian agreed, and moved on. "The first simulation should pop up now. Close your simulators to get the best surround sound, and we can begin."
Tommy smirked as he watched the walls of his simulator close, encasing him in near-darkness save for the light that flickered on overhead and the controls that blinked to life. Tommy took a few minutes to tune the controls to the suitable localities that he handled frequently—or had, anyway—and then he sat back in the seat and waited for the screen in front of him to load.
It had been years since he'd done this, and he still remembered like it was yesterday.
Tommy had to wear a jacket to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge after sundown, for it was windy and cold, and the air smelled like fish and salt. Barely any cars passed at this hour; perhaps a few—but not a lot, not compared to the daytime traffic.
"So," he said to Sniff, who walked beside him nervously on the pedestrian path. The red metal was a lot larger close-up, and when Tommy had touched it, was freezing cold. It was almost summer, too. "Why did you want to meet me here?" They'd met here before, of course. On walks, mostly. Just—talking about shit. Funny stories. Nothing too deep. Talks about Tommy being an Avian. Theories that were slightly dangerous and Tommy had wanted to find out about.
Sniff paused, putting a hand on the railing as she turned towards the ocean, where the sun had set. Tommy paused beside her, blinking as the wind assailed his face. It was sort of peaceful here if he closed his eyes and let the air blow against him.
"This is the Elytrians' favorite place to go in San Francisco," Sniff said, her fingers making tap-tap-tap sounds against the metal. Tommy raised an eyebrow, curious why she was so nervous. It wasn't like they hadn't been here before—though he hadn't known that Elytrians liked to come here.
"I'm hardly Elytrian," Tommy said, leaning over and peering at the water below. "Think I could glide to land from here?" He'd attempted to try it on one of the days that he stood on the railings, and Sniff had stared at him like he was batshit crazy. She'd pulled him back and threatened to rat him out to Phil if he tried it again.
"If you weren't an Avian, you would break your bones when you hit the water and drown," Sniff said calmly, staring up at the stars and the space station that wasn't visible from the ground. "Anyway, I heard you got a nine-hundred and seven on your flight simulation today."
Tommy cracked a slight grin. "Yeah, I'm pretty great."
"Sure, Tommy," Sniff said, her eyes crinkling as she smiled. "I—well, I'm new to Fleet school; this is my first term after I moved here from Elytra..." she trailed off, unable to finish. "I think that I might have quit track if you hadn't been there. I'm not one for yelling at people, see. Jacob would have pissed me off."
"Hopefully, Jacob is shoveling cow shit," he pointed out. "Sniff, why'd you ask me to meet here after dinner? I mean, it's not that I don't like hanging out with you, but you were so secretive about it."
Sniff coughed. "I'm—well, we all have our secrets. I wasn't exactly surprised to find out you were an Avian, though I didn't guess that. Whenever you ran, it's like you flowed through the air—which I suppose, you do." Tommy shifted, thinking of today's practice after school. It had been far more enjoyable without Jacob there, and Velvet had mentioned a possible track meet this weekend. "So you're not Human. You have Captain Sam Innes as your father, and Lieutenant Clara Innes as your mother and Co-Captain Cara Puffy as your aunt—those were your secrets."
"You have no idea," Tommy murmured, his words lost to the wind.
"And...." Sniff said. "Well, I think that you had every reason to lie, y'know, being an endangered species and all that." She tilted her head. "But—but I think that lying is bad, for me, and so I wanted to come here to say that I'm not Human either."
Tommy recoiled sharply, turning to look the girl in the face. She had a dreamy look as she stared up at the sparkling stars, and Tommy knew that she was telling the truth, that she had lied just as he had, that her records had liked just as his had. His brain shrieked in surprise, reaching out to her and—and finding nothing, but that didn't mean that she couldn't be—
"Avian?" he asked sharply.
Sniff laughed softly, shaking her head, looking at him with her pale blue eyes. "No," she said. "I think that you would have known if I was Avian even if I had told you straight-up that I was Human." In his mind, Tommy did know that—, and his brain shrieked again and withdrew back to its sleep, but he is still sad that he had not found another of his species. "I am...not adopted, Tommy. I am Elytrian."
Tommy stared at her, his jaw falling open. He blinked slightly.
"You're going to ask why I don't have wings," Sniff said lightly. "And you're right. I'm not hiding them or anything. I just...don't." She let out a small breath. "I. I used to have wings. A long time ago. Never flew, though. I was too young to do anything more than glide." She laughed, but it wasn't a happy one, and there was a slight choking sound that came after. A horrible feeling filled Tommy, and he was afraid that he knew the truth. "I moved away 'cause I couldn't stand their pity. My parents, friends, and neighbors all looked at me, and they didn't see me for who I was. All they saw was the little girl who lost her wings." She shook her head.
"Do you miss it?" he asked her softly. "Your wings, I mean." It was sort of a stupid question, too, but he felt like he had to ask it.
Sniff considered that. "I mean...if I hadn't lost them, I wouldn't be where I was today. I went through a horrible depressive state for four years, see. Lost them when I was twelve."
"How?" Tommy said, immediately cursing his stupid mouth. "Wait, you don't have to tell me—"
"We're in a private place for a reason," Sniff said. "There are—there is this group of people, and they're kidnappers, and well...well, Elytrian wings pay for a lot, so they kidnapped me from the park, and they cut off my wings, and they left me to die." Tommy stared at her. "I was too stubborn to die, though, and so I lived."
"I'm..." he said. "Saying sorry doesn't really help, does it?"
"You must get some experience with people saying that," Sniff said, blinking in surprise. "But yeah. I suppose it doesn't." The—the Elytrian girl let out a shaky breath. "I think...I think I wouldn't have left home had I kept my wings. I think I would have become an artist, which is fine, but I would never have joined Fleet school and wanted to become an engineer and built mechanical parts. I would never have met you, or Lani, or Drista, or Tubbo, or Ranboo, Purpled, Phil...any of your crew."
"But don't you miss them?" he asked. "Your family. Your friends."
"Of course," she said instantly. "But they look at me, and they see that broken twelve-year-old girl who was in and out of the hospital for months and months. It took me years to move on, but I think they never did. My parents love me so much, but they blame themselves for not protecting me, and they've become helicopter parents." She shook her head. "I turned eighteen and got out of there. I love them, Tommy, I really do, but I can't...I can't deal with that. If I've moved on, they should have as well."
Tommy turned away from his friend to stare at the moving waters, trying to imagine a little Elytrian girl with slashes across her back because some bastards had cut her wings off.
"You're thinking really loud."
"Just..." he said. "It must have been painful."
"It was," Sniff said softly. "Sometimes, I dream about it. Sometimes I dream of flying. Elytrian kids start flying around twelve, see. In a few months, I might've as well." She shook her head. "I suppose that's why I wanted to join Fleet school, and consequentially, the Galactic Rebellion. So I can—save people, y'know?"
"I do," he said slowly, and made his decision. "If we're all about sharing secrets, I think I might as well."
Sniff frowned at him. "You have more?"
"Of course," he said. "I'm—well, I'm the leader of the Children's Rebellion, Sniff."
The Elytrian girl stared at him for a second, her face contorting in about twenty different expressions in half a second.
Tommy burst out laughing. "We're a sorry bunch, aren't we?" he said.
"I..." Sniff said. "Is that why you left after Rue died?"
"Yeah," he said softly. "Purpled chased after me. He did it on purpose, I think. Because I refuse to admit that..."
"...something is wrong," Sniff finished for him. "I think I understand that bit. Partially. I mean, I had my family and stuff, but that ..." she let out a shaky exhalation. "I was in denial for months and months before I realized that I was going to have to stop moping and do something."
"It's been two years," he said warily. "I don't think anything is changing anytime soon."
"I don't know your story, Tommy," Sniff said softly. "And you don't have to tell me more—that's fine. But I know that something happened that made it so you weren't rescued with Purpled and Ranboo, and it probably put you into survival mode. You didn't have time to think about—you know."
"The Red Planet's Genocide," he supplied helpfully.
"Yeah," Sniff said. "That." She hesitated. "It doesn't matter how long it takes, but I think...that Purpled is right. I mean, he totally went about doing it wrong, but you can't ignore this." Sniff tilted her head. "Talking about it with someone is good, though. Someone that wasn't with you."
"Tubbo knows," he said. "But he found out accidentally."
"Well, that sucks," Sniff told him. "But Tubbo cares for you. What about Wilbur and Phil and Techno? Isn't Phil your guardian?"
"Yeah," he said. "But um—they don't know."
"You don't have to give them any details quickly—"
"No, they don't know," he interrupted. "Like...at all. They don't know I'm a member of the Children's Rebellion or that I was at Pogtopia at all."
"That's...not good," Sniff said carefully, attempting—and failing—to keep the judgment out of her eyes.
"I don't want their pity," he admitted. "I don't want them to look at me and see anything different than who I am."
"I don't think they would."
"Your parents did with you," he said bluntly. Sniff stiffened, and Tommy sighed. "I'm sorry. That was uncalled for."
"But true," Sniff said. "You are right in that. Perhaps they would treat you differently. You don't have to ever tell them, if you don't want to. It's your choice, in the end. But other people have always been essential at coming to terms with things—it's always harder, alone."
"Is it?" he asked softly. "I thought that it would be a burden."
"Good people like helping," Sniff said with a small smile. "And I think they care about you, Tommy. A lot. I think you fit in like a missing puzzle piece."
He lifted his head. "Really?"
"Really," the Elytrian girl said, satisfied. "Of course, I don't know you guys all too well, but from what I see..." she shrugged.
"Thanks," he said after a moment. "For not—I don't know, freaking out. I suppose you're the first person I've told so...trial run."
"It's not a problem," Sniff said softly. "I don't mind, really. Thanks for—not acting differently either. I mean, I know that you won't be the same—you understand, now, and that's a change, but you don't treat me like I'm broken glass." Sniff tilted her head. "Hey, I have a question for you."
"Yeah?" Tommy asked.
"It's hypothetical," Sniff said. "But—if you died, where would you want to be buried?"
Tommy considered that. "Why are you asking?"
"Because it says a lot about a person," Sniff admitted. "Where they feel at home, and who they are. What they want to be buried with—because after they're gone, it's the people that come after that deal with the loss."
Tommy let out a small breath. "I think," he said. "There's this database that the A.I. on the L'manburg holds. On it, there's a list of completed missions, which Command knows about, and then there are the ones that Command doesn't know about, which I can't even access on my own." He shook his head. "Before—before the Arachnids blew up the H.M.S Fran, and before the Piglin transport, my dad and my aunt were looking for something." Sniff glanced at him, curiosity sparkling in her eyes. "It was...I think it was a planet. I—I just thought it was some random mission until Merikh Rience came along and interrogated me on the location of the Avian home planet."
"You think it exists?" Sniff asked, having already been debriefed on that whole thing, even though it had been a secret. It had been her ship that had been lost, after all.
"I think I wasn't sure," he said. "But the Vice-Admiral said that other Avians do exist, and we can't all be gone, right?" There was a hopefulness in his own tone that he hoped Sniff didn't hear. "Maybe—maybe it's real. Or maybe it's not, and it's like the Artifact that both sides search for over and over again."
"Maybe the planet is the Artifact," Sniff said.
He shrugged, considering that. "I don't know. But—if I died, I think I'd like someone to go and bury me there."
"Not with your family?"
"Their graves are false," he said. "Their bodies are lost to space."
"Ah."
"What about you?" he asked her curiously.
"I think I'd want to be back at Elytra," Sniff admitted. "As much as I hated that place afterward, it's pretty and well...it's my home, even after everything. Maybe the mountain ranges or some hidden valley. I've always loved the snow and the grass." She shook her head. "Cremated, though. And somewhere nice. Where the cities aren't, and where I can finally learn to breathe."
He didn't mention the graves that Purpled had told him about. The graves of three children with stars and banners adorned upon their cold, dark tomb.
A part of him wanted to return there, should he die.
A part of him missed the golden glade that he would never see again.