The Legacy of Shiny Skies

The old sailor surveys the walls of their room for a final time.

Over the cycles it’s become a patchwork tapestry of images and letters and newspaper pages in the rubbery organic material which acts for paper beneath the surface of the Thousand-Colours Moon. Images and messages and stories – of struggle – of violence – of hope. Political turmoil and constitutional crises at home. Riots and scandals and whispers of civil war. Failed prison escape attempts. Deaths of leading political figures. Bombs and assassination attempts. Strikes in mining colonies on far-distant moons. Rumours of conflict between Eternal Sky and Curved Leaf. An endless stream of chaos – an endless cycle of violence – an endless string of victories, of freedom won from the grasp of tyranny.

Letters, too – many of them. The letters from old friends, which grew fewer and further apart over the years as they began to move on. In their place, new letters – new names, new stories, new messages – letters asking for advice, giving thanks, boasting of victories, letters viciously insulting too. An endless stream of voices. As old faces fade away, dead or imprisoned or too tired to continue, new ones take up the struggle. The cycles continue. And no one has forgotten where it all began – this old sailor, alone in the cell.

She looks down over their few possessions in a small bag. Books – some on history and politics, of course, but others, more perhaps, on the stars, on the distant worlds she never got to visit. Writing materials, for responding to all those letters, because they’ll be dead before they stop replying, that’s for sure. A few trinkets collected over the years. Her mother’s string of beads, the same string she clutched on that fateful day she pressed the button which triggered this chain reaction.

They take up the bag and leave the cell. The door closes with a faint clang behind her.

She can’t help but sigh - no rest for the wicked, eh? The struggle continues as it always will. There is work to be done.

It’s beautiful, far different from the city they had known in their youth, and yet ghosts still linger in the streets: flickers of light, chanting of long-gone crowds, memories of a fight won without war. The shackles the elders imposed on the nation had been cast off many cycles ago; and yet hers remain. Many of the younger sailors know not and care not for her, or her crimes, but they reap the benefits nonetheless; and doesn’t that make it worth it?
‘Doesn’t that make it worth it?’

They wonder.

Her colouration now faded with the currents of time having done their work, but their bioluminescent patterns have remained steadfast: a reminder of who she was and will always be; her eyes are as hopeful bright as the day she hatched.

“One day we will swim together under the freed Eternal Sky.”

A sentence said to a friend, once. The friend that bound her in these chains, chains she bound herself in. There is no malice in her thoughts: the time for that had long since passed, besides, it is kinder to look upon the past with light; and she had not been a good friend to others. Imprisoned, taken by the abyss, lost in solitude, thriving in their ventures; many of her friends have moved on, but she stayed there, forever trapped. She’d sent letters to the people that no longer visited: Do-Loris, PERlite; her life, hopes for the future, things she'd learned, the letters grew shorter as the cycles went on. They think back to all the people they met along the journey to the present; the friends, allies, and vows of enmity sworn: the wonders each of them achieved forming a vast web of impact on the galaxy, for better and worse. And still the memories her mind recalls most often would appear of little consequence in the grand schemes of the stars: the foreign hum of flames on a night she wished lasted forever; that final drink of freedom with Gleaming Jet; Soaring Glow's disappointment; Sapphire's kindness; Vrani's optimism; PERlite's determination; Reya's grief; Xhoa's song. The world has changed, and the naive starry-eyed sailor that arrived on the Guild one day had long since been burned away; though small pieces of her glisten in the remnants, that sailor who sought freedom, who wanted to see all the galaxy could offer; exploration will have to wait, as it always has done.

Like so many times before, Shiny Skies peered up at the sky, the ammonia is clear tonight, dazzling specks of brightness cover its canvas, and yet they are duller than they should be. Maybe some dreams are never meant to be realised. They return to the prison transport; back to her cell: freedom was never meant for her it seems. And yet they’ll keep waiting…

Written by Izzy R.

A long time later, on a far distant planet circling a far distant star.

A young sailor stops at the edge of a quiet square surrounded by high, austere buildings. At the centre of the square, a large group of government troops surround some workers disassembling a statue. The sailor lingers in silence to observe an older couple, also watching, discuss the proceedings.

“Should’ve taken that statue down years ago.”

“Who is it?”

“A murderer – killed their own people. A terrorist.”

“Why?”

“Political purposes, I don’t know – it inspired a revolution of sorts, I think.”

“Then maybe it did some good. Sounds like a freedom fighter to me.”

“Be careful! You don’t want them to catch you defending her.”

“You started it.”

The couple drifts off, saying nothing more.

The young sailor sinks off back into the cold shadows of the quiet city. A chill idea is trickling into their mind. Perhaps, they think, it is about time for someone like the sailor of that statue to spark the fight again.