[TWWM] Staring Above

CW: bodies, grief, death, panic, anger, loss of self, derealization, depersonalization, children

It was dark. That was the funny thing, I thought. It was always supposed to be light when you died. There was supposed to be a light, and a tunnel, and- I spun around. "Skiá!" I tried to call her name, but my mouth didn't move. I felt the echo of my words reverberate through my mind, through the wind around me.
I saw the moon glimmering off the sea, my house, covered in vines. I turned slowly around the room, noting everything. The fireplace, dead and full of ashes. Skiá and I used to curl up there...I turned to the wall quickly. My bookshelves, filled with a lifetime and more of knowledge on medicine and how to bury the dead.
Our bed, covered with one of Skiá's quilts. I paced over to touch it gently, imagining the patterns woven into it, as it was too dark to see. I remember this one the best, because it was the last one she made. Right before she got sick, she finished the last stitches.
Not only was it special because it was her last, but because it was a promise. Starting at the bottom, it told a story of how we met - dark, oceanic blues for the nighttime, and then a honeyed amber cream to show my lantern as I discovered her. It led up to the very top, where three very special layers lay.
I saw in my minds eye as I smoothed it over her, tears brimming in my eyes. A spring green of new life, and new hopes- we had wanted to go into the city and find a baby. Sturdy and coarse, a layer of sheep wool that had been left on my doorstep, to represent what she loved about me that no one else ever had: how our hands fit perfectly. Her woodworking calluses and my digging calluses.
And then there was the last layer, red as a rose. She had never told me what this one meant, or what it was supposed to be. But the red was still vivid in my mind, even in this dark time.
I turned to the last side of the room, the last part there was to investigate. And, sitting in a pool of moonlight, was my body. I was smiling, and I was dead. "No," I collapsed down. "No!" My body was black and furred, a large flower placed on my chest. "No!" I heard skittering, someone escaping from my home.
I knew, in my heart, they were someone like me. I chased after the noise, my new body running like my old one never could. I did not feel pain, but I was not here, somehow I was no longer physical. I chased, and came to a stop once the connection seemed to snap.
I screamed out at the sea, waves crashing against my unmoving body. "No! I was supposed to be with her! I was going to be in her arms again!" My scream pierced the night and my mind, and I shook my head with pain. Why can't I speak? I folded myself into a ball, like I'd seen cats do.
And then, by the shore, I slept. When I had awoken, I was still on the shore, covered with seaweed that had washed up in the night. I got up slowly, my mind unused to my new limbs. A long tail with two sharp ends dragged behind me. I looked out at the sea, and then climbed wearily up the cliffs back to my home.
There it was, in the daylight, glistening with morning dew. A single clay shingle fell from the roof and ripped a vine off of the wall. I walked through it in shock. Our kitchen, filled with dishes I had never bothered to clean. A closed door next to our room stopped me in my tracks. This was the room where Skiá had stayed, when she had first come to me.
I remember waking up in the night to her standing in my doorway, her hand still raised from the knock that had summoned me from sleep. "It's storming," she had said quietly. A loud crack of thunder spoke up at that moment, and I had felt my heart twang with the sweet love I felt for her. I patted the bed, and she curled into my arms. I had run my hand gently over her hair, enjoying how it sprung up after my touch had passed, like new moss.
We had turned her old bedroom into something new. Now it was no longer a patient room, no longer a room to die in, but a room to live in. I nudged it open with my new form, and looked around. A strong and beautiful crib sat beside a window. The wood was strong and polished, willow runners on the bottom, so that it would've rocked our child to sleep.
Skiá had made this. At first, I thought it was going to be another coffin for my work, but as soon as she asked me for willow wood, I knew what was meant to be. A month later, it sat in the room. I decorated with a mobile made with leaves and twigs, some shiny stones. We knew our child would grow in the woods, running free to learn the laws of the earth.
She had made a blanket too. A quiet cornflower blue beamed up at me from the crib, made from soft cotton, with edges of velvet traded for at market. I sat by it softly, wishing I could close my eyes and stop viewing the world for a moment. The to be child's room was filled with two other things: toys, and dust. I left the room, bringing the door shut behind me.
The rest of the house was without life, without death. My body was gone, and I felt gone too. I left my shell of a home, and walked to the cliff behind my house, gazing at the ocean. It swept the sand softly, dragging away the imprint of my new body in the sand. I sighed and left. The sea had nothing to offer me anymore, not Skiá, not our child, and not a way to get back to her.
I spent centuries sitting in front of my old home. I watched the time pass- new buildings were constructed, roads came out from the city, and my home was lost to time and weather. People posted lanterns near me, on tall metal trees. The lights guided people home at night.
When the city was too bright, I went to the shore to stare at my guiding star. "Polaris," I whispered softly. I slept on the shore, like I had done the first night of becoming this creature. I awoke, shook off the seaweed covering my body, and heard a clank. There was a branch of driftwood coming from my back, and hung onto the wood was a large, lit lantern.
I accepted this as a message, a calling from someone above. I called myself Polaris, and I walked into the sea. I left my home behind, and the ocean called me. As I walked, the water swirled.
I smelled Skiá burning a cake she tried to make. I smelled fresh goat's milk, acorn cookies. I heard Skiá singing to herself as I danced with her. I felt the warmth of a fire, and the roughness of her hands in mine. I saw us, blurry. She sat at our table with a baby, bouncing them in her lap. The baby laughed, dark curls clustered close to their head. Skiá watched them as they toddled off, and then sat down, entranced with a bug they had found.
I choked back a sob as I walked into the scene. I scooped our child up, and smooched their head. I was covered with dirt, but I knew it wasn't from burials anymore. I knew, in my soul, that this version of us had grown past the funeral business, and instead I had been weeding the garden.
The blurry vision disappeared, and I was in a large, cavernous space. It was filled with stars, and a large pool of water. Honeycomb shaped walls towered above me, impossibly warped. There was no way this place was real. There was no way I was real. I climbed up a staircase of tumbled boulders, leading to a flat platform.
The platform sat above the pool of water, so deep I could not see down to the depths. I sat on the platform, and craned my neck upwards. The stars pulsed in my vision, and I watched them closely. My body began to feel light, and I felt as if I was slowly rocking back and forth. My physical body was unmoving.
I watched the stars, and I thought.