Liza had very deliberately not considered it at all, but even in the brief moments she’d spent talking to Aleion, she knew they were not some cosmic monster aiming to torture and destroy them all. At worst, they seemed ignorant and naive. While she was still uncomfortable about the whole mind-to-mind situation, it seemed to be something very trivial to ceisites, and well, she felt guilty for the assumptions she’d made of Aleion and ceisites in general.

She closed her eyes and took a calming breath. “You’re definitely not going to intrude on anything deeper?”

“I give you my word, nothing but the hint of your surface thoughts should be passed to me.”

Liza considered it for a moment more before finally agreeing to it. “Fine, what do I need to do.”

The moment she agreed, she felt an emotional impression from Aleion’s mind. It suddenly felt like her body had been exposed to the warm sun of her home world after years of cold winter. Her mind felt clear for the first time in years, and she could almost see the bright purple sky with white leaves blowing in the wind, hear laughter, smell the nutty scent of warm kural, feel the texture of the wrapping paper between her fingers. Liza’s throat immediately clogged up. Her hearts clenched so hard she felt like she was dying.

This was the result of the impression of Aleion’s joy on her mind. The ceisite equivalent of a bright smile translated by her brain as one of her happiest memories. Memories that were now tainted by everything that happened after.

“Oh, this is wonderful. Thank you, Sof. Liza!” Aleion said excitedly. Each word punctuated by another burst of joy that brought up a new memory, followed by the tragedy that tainted it. She couldn’t hear anything he was saying. She was drowning in memories she’d tried so hard to bury. “You don’t have to do anything. I’ll start now!”

“Wait…”

Before she could finish her sentence, she felt Aleion’s power lightly brush her mind. Aleion had mentioned surface thoughts, but as a result of Aleion’s expression of joy, all her surface thoughts were now her most painful moments. It could only have lasted a couple seconds, but in that short moment, the lethargic depression that had been an ache in her soul was enhanced to a crippling pain. Every potent memory she had ever felt was brought to recollection:

She recalled her fourteenth birthday, which for Mulians, was significant as it was around when their antenna blooms began to form, and their limbs began to pigment. Her mother bought her the young inventors kit she’d been asking for. It wasn’t anything they could afford, but her mother had always believed in her. She’d never once doubted that Liza would achieve her goals, so what if their finances were stretched thin that month. She recalled how bright the sun was that day as they sat beneath the large ykan tree in their garden and drank iced kural made from the nuts that grew from it. She had saved that wrapping paper and kept it until she left Mulia.

Next was the memory of when she got accepted into the Cajaran college of space engineering. A renowned college that was near impossible to get into but fully supported all its students financially and even offered them stipends. It had taken her fifteen tries to get in. She was still young, mid-thirties, and the moment should have marked the beginning of more good things to come in their lives, and for a while, it did.

She met her partner, Firon, at the university, and they got married after just a few months, too young and too soon by most standards, but such was their love. This was the peak of her life. Her academics were excellent. She had entered the ranks of Elect Scholar and was about to start an apprenticeship at Uwilian Corps, a reputable auto-server and artificial brain developer. Five glorious years had passed since she’d met Firon, and she was due to have their first child soon. Her life was saturated with joy, so saturated with it that the only option was for it to begin to leak away.

Firon died in an accident testing a new shuttle engine.

She had fainted from the shock and woke up in her mother’s arms. Her mother had been weeping, and she didn’t understand why until she realized the mammary glands on the side of her stomach had deflated. She obviously hadn’t given birth.

That should have been enough, but the universe always wanted more.

Two years later, she smiled in resignation as she poured her mother’s ashes, along with any false hope she had for future happiness, into the ground under the ykan tree.