#kluya

Two decades on the mountaintop, waiting, waiting, waiting. Death was different from what KluYa expected; it seemed more like a dream than an end to him. Oh, that it were a dream! Then he could save Theodore as easily as breathing.

But it was not a dream. He knew that Theodore was lost. He knew that eventually, Cecil would come, and he knew what he must ask of him: fratricide. Kill a brother to save a world.

FuSoYa felt his brother’s death like a knife in his gut.

Lunarians were not immortal.  FuSoYa, as their chosen guardian, was expected to wake and perform maintenance once every Lunarian year (about five Blue Planet years) before rejoining his brethren in cryosleep.

But FuSoYa knew, if he slept, that waking again only to remember his brother’s loss would utterly break him.  So he stayed awake, with his grief and regret, refusing himself the peace of slumber.

They had not parted well.  The tension between their beliefs had caused a rift they had never managed to close.