Silver Light Chapter 9 (Patreon)

  **Hello! As usual this chapter is pre-beta reader check, so there might be errors and stuff. If you see any, please feel free to post a comment here <3. Thank you so much for being my patron and for being readers of my stories! I recently managed to buy a mattress with everyone's help here and I am so happy. Myself and my relieved spine thank you!!** 

We found our way onto highway 90 as we left the city, following it west out of Boston. The trees on either side of the road hid the outskirts of the city as we walked, but they failed to hide all evidence of what had happened. Cars had been travelling a lot faster out here on the highway than they had in the city, and it looked like many had lost control when everything stopped. One car in particular caught my eye. I winced and looked away from the sedan, but not before I saw the body of a young man in the driver’s seat. It had lost control and plowed into the center barrier and pieces of it were all over the road.

I sidled closer to Fiona as we walked after that, feeling vulnerable as the sun dropped below the horizon. Fiona was so damn strong and reliable, it was hard not to think of her as a rock to hide behind. Sure, she had a lot of cracks, but maybe I could shore those up just as she shielded me from the shitty world around us. All of this assuming we would stay friends in the future. Things were early days yet.

When the sun was finally gone, she sighed and stopped, looking down at me, “I think that’s enough for me. I can’t keep going, need to let my lungs rest, they’re being bastards today.”

“What do you mean?” I asked quizzically. She’d been much better than I had with her endurance.

“My disability. Gunk keeps building up in my lungs, I have to use my inhaler to break it apart and the antibiotics stop it from becoming infected. It’s just what I have to deal with. Sucks too because I like to be active, I’ve been struggling against it my whole life and I mean I can deal with it now but…” she said, then stopped, her expression becoming withdrawn, “Whatevs, it’s not that important. Don’t want my whole tragic backstory right?”

Shrugging, I smiled and dinged a knuckle off her armour, “I mean I don’t mind. Friends right?”

She gave a little smile and nodded, “Yeah. Friends… um I guess we should try and find somewhere hidden to camp out. I’d normally suggest we like set watches and stuff but we’re both tired as fuck so it’s not going to work. You gotta learn how to set wards already.”

“Wards? Yeah I mean it might be a thing. I’ll ask Moon when she’s back in range,” I said thoughtfully, summoning and holding the lightning spell again and taking another look at the weave that brought it into being. The magic I had was fascinating. I almost recognised its form, like I’d seen something similar.

“Whoa!” Fiona squeaked, leaping back a bit.

I looked up in confusion at her, “What’s wrong?”

“You’re doing the lightning glowy thing! Is there danger? What are you going to blast?” she said gesturing wildly up and down my body.

“O-oh,” I said sheepishly, dismissing the spell and feeling my magic simmer back down, “I was just looking at the weave of the spell to see if I could change it somehow.”

“Right… well you light up like Thor from the Avengers when you do, so like warn me okay?” she frowned.

“Um… yeah I will.. Sorry,” I said, shrinking a bit under her gaze.

“Oh come on, no need to look like a whipped puppy. Let’s go find a place to sleep cutie,” she said rolling her eyes and gesturing into the trees at the side of the road.

There she goes again with the casual compliments! Cutie? Really? I should be offended right? I should tell her that she is mistaken and I am in fact a big scary man. Look at these muscles! Except obviously when I look down I have my slender little girl arms that end in a girlish and delicate hand. Dang. Who am I kidding, I was never very strong anyway. Fiona could have probably bench pressed me even before my strange transformation.

I almost bumped into her when she turned around to speak again, “I think this will work, I’ll set up the tent while you gather… why are you staring at your hand?”

“My hand is really girly,” I told her seriously, frowning up into her grey eyes.

“Yeah.. your everything is girly Delphie…” Fiona nodded, tilting her head to the side like she could get a better angle into my thought process right now.

I shuffled on the spot for a moment, trying to put my thoughts in order, “I feel weird about being a girl.”

“Yeah that makes sense that you’d be uncomfortable. We can get you some guyish clothing, if you’d like. Bind your boobs. I can go back to calling you Evan,” she offered sympathetically.

“Why does it make sense?” I asked.

“Because you’re no longer the gender you are inside, your soul or your mind or whatever name you’d like to place on it. I dated a trans girl once who did a pretty good job explaining it to me. You’re probably experiencing some sort of gender dysphoria because you got swapped into a body that doesn’t match who you are,” she explained kindly, reaching out with a gauntleted hand and placing it on my shoulder.

I mulled her words over for a moment, looking back down at my girly hands. Did that fit what I was feeling? How did I know what this gender dysphoria would feel like?

“I don’t feel… uncomfortable per se… more like just odd. It doesn’t feel wrong to be called Delphira. I mean I actually kinda like it? But I still feel wrong… or this should be wrong? I know my mother would freak out about it. I get sick just thinking about her reaction…” I said, tripping over my thoughts as they tried to all bubble up at once, “Shit she’d start into hysterics right away. I’m the only son, the family line would end with me, she’d say. My dad would probably just get confused by the whole thing.”

“Oh Delphie…” Fiona said gently, her hand rising to run a finger down my cheek briefly, “Just let everything settle in that little head of yours okay? You have time. We’ve had almost zero downtime since this all started, but we have like a week or more before we get to where we’re going. Lot of time to think things through.”

My mood wavered and threatened to dive into tears of confusion, panic and oddly, happiness, when she called me “Delphie” and “Little”. Why did those two words reverberate through me like a gong had been struck? I gulped once, nodded, and tried to get myself under control, then gulped again because it felt like something was stuck in my throat. Alright Delphira, deep breaths. Calm down. You can’t have a meltdown right now, the world is ending around us.

When I looked up again, my friend squeezed my shoulder gently, “You good?”

“Um, I think so?” I lied. I was not at all good.

Fiona didn’t seem all that convinced either, but she just squeezed my shoulder again and pointed me to the fallen branches around us, “Grab some wood okay? Just dry stuff if you can find it. I’ll clear the ground and set up the tent.”

“Alright. I can do that,” I nodded.

Looking around at the spot she had chosen I saw that it was a little hollow with a ledge on one side that shielded us from view of the road. The trees had obviously been planted a while back and left to grow after they could fend for themselves. Amongst the usual detritus of a woodlot like this one, there was the added refuse from the road. A lovely assortment of old McDonalds, cigarette butts and anything else that might be thrown from a car window was laying on the ground.

I was able to find some reasonably dry fallen branches around the place, but I was quickly confronted with my new small and weak stature. Fiona might be a strong woman, but I was not. I mean, I don’t think I was either of those things but I was definitely not strong. I did my best to haul the pieces I could lift, but I was exhausted. Fiona watched me with a mixture of amusement and something else I couldn’t discern. I wish she’d been the one to gather the firewood. I’m sure I could figure out how to pitch that tent.

When both of our chores were done and she was out of her armour, she set to building a small fire to cook our food on. It took her a while, she was used to a flame that cooperated apparently. Our dinner consisted of some chicken that she’d had in the fridge that would have gone off either way, and some vegetables we fried along with it in the pan. I had to push her away from the fire and take over when she tried to cook it all without any seasoning. She hadn’t wanted to bring any seasoning, but I’d snuck it into my pack anyway.

“I don’t get why you thought to bring herbs and spices and stuff,” she grumbled from her cross legged position nearby.

I looked up at her, “If you’re into HEMA, you must be some sort of history nerd. The ancient fortunes were built on this shit! It’s also just another thing that won’t last long without the global market.”

“Oh… yeah. You have the long term in mind eh?” she said, her frown easing into thoughtfulness.

“I mean I hope we get to live that long,” I said shrugging pessimistically.

“You will probably get to,” she smiled sadly.

“Hey we’ll figure something out for you Fi! There’s got to be a spell that will help,” I told her, trying to project a confidence I didn’t have.

She looked down at her feet and shrugged, but I wasn’t going to have any of that. I left the food to simmer and walked over to sit down with her.

“Don’t give up just yet Fi, I’m sure I can get Moon to help figure this out. She might be a scatterbrain but she’s also a giant sentient ball of rock and dust. She must have some idea of what we can do,” I said, gently leaning over to bump her shoulder.

“I’m not giving up. I have to get you somewhere safe after all. It just sucks. This shit has always been a pain in the ass. My whole life you know? But now it’s put this timer on my life-” she said, reaching out to shush me with a hand when I started to protest, “No no let me finish. I always knew there was a non-zero chance I’d end up dying because of it, but living in modern society you kinda have every expectation that it will take a while. Well, not anymore.”

I didn’t really have anything I could say to that, so I turned and stared at the food cooking on our small fire. I was still leaning on her shoulder with mine, and I left it that way. It felt nice to have a tiny bit of human contact. Really nice. Actual physical contact was a rare thing to a guy like me these days.

The food ended up being pretty bland anyway. I wasn’t the best cook even when I was in a real kitchen, but at least it wasn’t completely tasteless.

Halfway through eating, my friend’s head snapped up and she looked at me quizzically, “You called me Fi.”

“Yeah…? You have a nickname for me, so I made one for you!” I smiled.

She stared into my eyes with a funny little smile on her face, then nodded and returned to her food without a word. I guess she didn’t hate it then.

Once our dinner was finished and the fire was out, it was time for bed. I took off my outer layers, wearing just a singlet and underwear. Fiona got changed into her own sleepwear behind the tent, which turned out to be much the same as my own. Then we laid out our foam mats and got into our sleeping bags. As soon as my back was to the ground I realised how hard it was even with the mats. Wow this was going to suck. Sleeping on the ground for a week and change? Never again would I complain about a mattress, no matter how bad it was.

“What a rollercoaster of a day. Let’s just be normal and shit tomorrow yeah? Emotional conversations and running for your life are draining,” she whispered into the dark of the tent.

“Yeah. I’m almost looking forward to mindless walking,” I whispered back.

She chuckled in reply, “Yup… goodnight Delphie.”

“Goodnight Fi.”

It was odd, but despite the hard ground and unfamiliar sleeping conditions in general, I still felt safe. Fiona definitely had a calming effect on me. So calming in fact that the calm worked together with my exhaustion to put me straight to sleep. Out like the lights that would never turn on again.

****

You look very comfortable! What is it like to be intimate with such warm squishy bodies?

Having Moon interrupt my sleep from inside my own mind was possibly the least ideal thing in the world. I am including the angry fire man and the hentai monster in that. Honestly, couldn’t she have just let me sleep? I guess if you don’t actually need to sleep you don’t understand the whole sleep thing but still. Grr.

I see that you are awake! I missed you so much! I didn’t think overly much about what would happen when I passed below your horizon but now I really do not like it. Having friends is great! How are you this morning Delphira? You seemed content before I woke you, but now that seems to have changed, is something wrong?

“Moon please,” I groaned, “Let me wake up before you start asking questions.”

Fiona groaned from near me, and I felt her shift behind me. Wait… she was very close, and why could I feel her moving? Were those her boobs pressed into my back? Her arm was definitely around me. She felt nice. I felt odd though, there was a kind of sparking fluttery warmth in my chest that seemed to hurt, but in a good way.

“Um, Fi…” I asked hesitantly.

“Mmm? What?” she mumbled into my neck.

I wiggled a bit, trying to physically tell her what the problem was as I said, “We’re spooning.”

“I know. It’s nice,” she murmured sleepily, then suddenly with much more alacrity she said, "Oh crap! I'm sorry!"

She shimmied away from me across the ground and I missed her warmth immediately. Turning over, I found her trying and failing to maintain eye contact while her whole face flamed a bright pink. I couldn’t help a little girlish giggle escaping my throat. Her reaction was endearing as hell.

"I'm sorry!" she blurted again, "I'm used to having a second pillow to hug and I guess you became that in the night. I seriously didn't mean it. I mean you’re cute but you're so confused and I don't want to take advantage or anything and I don't even know how you swing anyway and-" her blabbering apology was cut short by a coughing fit that sounded horrendous.

I rushed across the ground as fast as one can rush when they are horizontal and pulled her to my chest to hold her. Her whole body was shaking violently and I felt myself descending into worried anxiety. She’s so athletic, why is her illness fucking her up so badly now?

Your friend appears to be ill. I believe it may kill her soon.

"Why? Why now?" I asked, my voice ringing with worry.

The device she uses to help with her symptoms is just as non-functional as most other technology the human race has relied on.

"Why though Moon? What can I do to fix this?" I practically cried to my ditzy patron.

Myself and the other celestial bodies of the Sol system are working to understand why. A very specific part of what you would call the laws of physics has been broken, but we are unsure as to the exact nature of the damage. As to what you can do now… I am afraid I cannot help you at this time. The magic I work with is at a fundamentally different scale to that which you work at. I can do no more than offer advice on the general building of a spell. Specific parts of the weave you must discover for yourself.

"Fuck. Fuckitty fuck fuck fuck. Okay. Will she live through this coughing fit?" I asked desperately.

I believe so. Unless… no the chances of an impact from orbital debris in your region is low.

"Orbital debris…?" I asked, dreading the answer and clutching my friend tight to my chest. She’d stopped coughing now and was doing her best to breathe.

Yes! It is fascinating watching all those little machines your species launched space slowly drift out of their orbits. They used to correct themselves, but now they cannot.

Oh right the fucking satellites. Each one needed to occasionally correct its orbit, and now one by one they were going to fall out of the sky. I didn’t think they were big enough to do anything but burn up in the atmosphere though.

"Won't they just burn up?" I asked.

Due to the changes I mentioned earlier, there is a good chance they will not.

I gaped for a moment, squeaking a confused question, "I… how…? Fuck it don't answer that. I'm not a physicist. Fi are you okay?"

She nodded against my chest slowly, still clutching at my singlet, "Yeah. I'll be good in a moment. Then… then we should get moving."

"Only when you're feeling up to it," I said a little sternly.

"Yes ma'am.”