“I’ve always tried to see the beauty in everything, though” Kyso confessed, attempting to lighten the discussion. “How in the last light of day, the crimson, umber, gold – how it washes over the wasteland.”

She could see the colors, but the sight didn’t register to her as beauty. Compared to what she was longing to see, to feel, to experience again – it was empty, nothing, just light.

“Almost like autumn in the old days,” he continued. “A lot colder though.”

She felt a grip on her shoulder, shaking her from her reverie. Althea looked over at him. Kyso had a smile on his face, his eyes twinkled in the falling light.

“What of your homeworld? You haven’t said much of it. Better than this, I hope.”

“Emerald?” she forced the name out: much more than a name, a dream, a reality, a hole inside her, that couldn’t be filled.

“It’s been so long,” she told him wistfully, offering a sidelong glance before returning her gaze to the gray, brown and white tundra below and beyond. However she could describe it, would be inadequate. “It’s green – a million shades of green – from pole to pole. Inside that green, all the colors you can imagine.”

A glance back revealed his sympathetic smile.

“It’s beautiful,” she told him with conviction. It must still be beautiful. “And warm.”

“Ours was like that,” he replied. Althea decided to support his hopes, but, regretted the statement as soon as she said it.

“It will be that way again.”

“Yes,” he smiled back, making it impossible to retract the false hope she’d offered. “With a little help from the Consortia… All right – a lot.”

She couldn’t respond.

Points of light were starting to appear in the purpling sky, two small moons, one pink one grey, accompanied their arrival.

“The stars are coming out,” he observed, then began to sing, old voice filled with pain and longing, love.

“As the sky grows dim, they light the dark, streaks of fire, burning shards.”

Shocked, she was compelled to follow along with the verse, staring with him up into the darkening eastern sky.

“Meet and cross in threads of love, the last of falling stars.”

His voice fell off as he heard her speaking the lyrics as he sang.

“You know the song,” he asked her sounding surprised, but pleased. Althea turned to him, suddenly wanting to tell him everything then, confess everything. Her fears roared back – stopped her dead.

“It was… popular,” was all she could think to reply.

“I’m glad to hear that it’s still being sung,” his voice was warm, accepting.

“Come,” he lifted a mittened hand to touch her shoulder again. “It’s late and the temperature drops quickly on the rim.”

She turned to him, hoping everything she felt wasn’t written all over her face.

“And the others are getting restless,” he smiled briefly, stopped, spotted something as he looked at her.

Oh.

“What, what is it?”

“You just keep reminding me of someone,” she tried, “someone I haven’t seen in a long time.”

She couldn’t keep the emotion out, had to disguise it somehow.

“Yes?”

She tried to imagine what was going on in his head. She continued the safest way she could.

“My father,” she told him, keeping it simple.

Her comment seemed to be a confirming one. Kyso’s expression turned from questioning to certainty, but remained soft.

“Hmm… And if I was a few hundred anna younger?” he offered. She tried a smile, but her mouth wouldn’t work right. He nodded in response.

“Well…” he started, then added, “come. The others did tell me to get you.”

She gave in, nodded, followed silently. As she trudged back through the thick snow, her thoughts turned and turned over hope and promise – all that she needed to tell Dorian.