The Legacy of Lina

She’s back, again. Back in the place they existed before zie learnt the meaning of the word “to live,” back in the place she swore again and again they’d never return to, a promise she’s broken countless times but hopes never to have to again.

This visit really should be the last.

Just one small chore, then I’ll quit this place tat.

They know these streets too well. Every step burns, and she hops and skips down the pavement to avoid the pain, though they know it won’t ease until she’s gone. Beside her, a small shadow does the same – though it stops from time to time to pick a pebble, or a flower, or a scrap of paper out of the gutter, and stash it in their pocket. The star of it all.

The linguistics department, too, looks exactly the same as before. The doors are still just a whisper too heavy, the lights uncomfortable, the smell wrong. The air tastes off here. She hadn’t noticed until she joined the Guild, but then… Despite the cycles she’s spent searching, all over the galaxy, xe still hasn’t quite found the perfect word to describe the first moment he took his EVA suit off inside the station. Swingip, perhaps. Infazing. Glarip.

Or maybe something they haven’t discovered yet.

As usual, Lina does her best to squint through the blind over Vel’s office window – are they in? Can she drop by for a chat? The office, however, is empty, no more than a small white box.

Only then does it hit her: Vel isn’t here. Vel doesn’t work here, any more. If she wants to talk to them, xe’s got to go to the Guild. There is no longer anything or anyone tying her to Kallimar – nothing but memories lhi’d rather leave far behind, at least. Lina feels the smile break across her face – and, in the window, her reflection grins back.

Ogomrin I’ve done that in this ortoxsha terr.

Her own office is not too far away. It’s similar to Vel’s – smaller, perhaps, the carpet still stained with spilt coffee and ink, and a few books and papers still piled haphazardly in a corner, but mostly the same. Four white walls. A boxy aspect. Miserable.

It’s the last time.

She had to come back for this. Before ripping their name from the wall, before walking out and never returning to this rotish terr, before fixing her eyes firmly forwards and refusing to look behind her – she couldn’t leave this here.

The small notebook is spiral-bound, with black covers, much like her current one. But inside, rather than neat lists of anythings and signates, are scribbling, sprawling stories. Fanciful etymologies spiral from clippings, interweaving and intersecting, telling yet more tales over and above the first. There are conversations overheard, the refrains of folksongs, even menu items from the university cafeteria – all repeated in a strange jumble of scripts, new and old and entirely imagined alike.

It’s silly to be sentimental when she’s trying to leave the past behind, they know, but having this still feels important somehow. It’s part of who she is, maybe. The foundation stone, the origin. A monolith, explaining the etymology of a life.

As she’d promised herself, Lina Lathena-Alathemanay pulls the label bearing her name from the door as ze leaves, ripping it to tiny shreds that flutter to the ground like ashes.

And then, with her past clutched tight between her hands, Lina walks out of the building without a single glance back.

Written by Eloise P.

“A father spake onto his child, ‘Choose your words carefully, son, less they be misheard.’ And cloaked in shadows, the Watcher heard, and his words were preserved.

Again, that son spoke to a friend, and said, ‘Sometimes people misinterpret your words, on purpose or by accident. There isn’t much you can do, except try your best to be careful.’ And again, the Watcher heard, and his words were preserved.

Again, that friend asks her child, ‘It’s easy to uninteg the signate of something you bug; are you sure you heard them right?’ And again, the Watcher heard, and her words were preserved.

And although each was right, in their own sense, none of their words were ever misrepresented. For although the Watcher overheard, they did not make presumptions of meaning, but merely recorded the facts of their language as best they could. This is the standard to which we must strive; never to research with pride, but rather with humility. Always to preserve, rather than reinterpret. So that all language might freely and safely rest upon the pages of the BUGD.”