Yesterday, 03:17 PM
She hadn’t been certain Tristan would dream. While he spoke, relief coaxed a smile to her face and lit her eyes like sun on water, a tension unburdening itself from her muscles. She rested her chin on her knees as she listened, needing surprisingly little of the detail to trust in what she was told. “Is she okay?” she asked instead, thinking of that lonely figure they had left sitting on the beach at Baikal.
Afterwards she didn’t disturb him while he tinkered with the radio, or whatever other tasks kept him busy while they waited. With an end in sight Thalia found the exhaustion harder to keep at bay. She hated the small betrayals of her body as it began to fail her. It hurt to breathe, like bands squeezing her chest in cold iron, though she wouldn’t admit to it aloud. Curled in on herself she barely moved. The power became slippery but she conserved all her focus on it in an effort to maintain what warmth she could in their small nook of the station. It took almost everything she had left.
Tristan heard the soft pad of paws before she did, but it was Thalia who squinted her eyes at the shadow which sauntered from deeper in the station. It was the first time she’d opened them beyond slits in hours, though she hadn’t been sleeping. “I thought you left me,” she said, voice hoarse, as the cat-like creature trotted over. The cold did not seem to affect it. Nor did the accusation, despite the raw hurt in how she’d said it.
“Yes,” the Nemesyne said. “Glad the Tristan is safe. Surprised though. Mother will not be pleased if you broke something, little sister.”
“Where did you even go?”
“Busy,” it said imperiously, and turned its attention to preening. Under the cocoon of her blanket Thalia touched the ring on her little finger, and thought about asking if it could cough up anything else of use to them. But she couldn’t quite find the cohesion for words or humour, or even to voice more questions. It was becoming harder to make sense of things. Instead she sank into what she could only describe as a distant promise of warmth. That at least the creature had come back, at the end.
Neme swished its forked tail, and in almost the same moment the eerie silence of the station was broken as the radio burst into sudden, screaming static. A distorted, tentative voice drifted across the airwaves: “Hello?”
It was still a good hour before their rescuers’ journey across the tundra finally brought them to the abandoned station. To Thalia that first glimpse was just of shadows in bulky gear, faces obscured, their reactions peppered with surprise and disbelief. They paused at sight of Tristan; dishevelled, hulking, gold eyes catching the low light like a wild animal. Perhaps it was because of all the things he had told her before, but she felt her heart suddenly panic at the possibility they might view a monster and not a man in this eerily desolate landscape. The anxiety was strangely gripping, a fear magnified into the first steps of delusion, but neither could she shake it. She shifted unsteadily to her feet, brushed her fingertips against the cold edges of his in solidarity. “His shoulder is hurt,” she said to them. There was barely more than husk left to her voice, though she spoke with all due seriousness. Then the last vestiges of sustaining power fled, and with its final loss it felt like a cavern of emptiness had been punched right into her chest. Fortunately she remembered little of what happened after, for mortifyingly, she crumbled.
It transpired they were scientists working in another part of the island, and the only other souls here. Their reception was not unkind, but there was tension and lingering suspicion for two impossible strangers and the manner in which they had been discovered, not helped when Thalia repeatedly and feverishly mumbled Antarctica to herself like she couldn’t believe it herself. Their research base was smaller but more sleekly modern than the abandoned one they had found by the shoreline, and sat on higher ground – a trek Thalia and Tristan never would have made on foot, even if they’d known where to go. Once safely transported a medic there checked them over and treated what he could. There were hushed and guarded arguments about contacting the mainland for emergency evacuation, for which the consensus seemed to be that they were inexplicably reluctant to do. She never heard the end of the discussion, though. Unconsciousness claimed her.
Holding onto the power for so long accounted for most of Thalia’s rapid deterioration, and despite her battered and bruised appearance, after a few days of almost solid deep sleep she began to come back to herself. Being clean and warm was a revelation which brought her a distinct amount of joy. One of the women lent her a comb to untangle the knots in her damp hair, which she eventually outsourced to Tristan with a beleaguered plea for help. She’d first come properly to consciousness in a storage room (surrounded by drawings), which she later learned was because there were no spare bunks in the spartan facility, but it offered enough privacy for there to be nothing to explain about the artwork. She found nothing to complain about. Thalia adapted to thrive on very little.
She assumed Tristan had forestalled awkward questions, or perhaps given the undercurrent of secrecy it was simply an unspoken understanding which had knitted in place during the intervening days. When Thalia later asked, one of the researchers told her they were here studying penguins, but in such a way she knew not to ask again. As to their discovery, the scientists spoke of strange premonitions they mostly blamed on the island’s isolation and the months they had been out here, at least until the strange contact from an entity they called “The Wicked Truth,” which had urged them towards the same conclusion: that there were people in need of help elsewhere on the island.
She watched the beeping equipment sometimes and wondered if Sage was a ghost in the machine, still lingering there, but his contact was infrequent lest it spooked the scientists further. It was Tristan who told her what had been decided while she was still out cold – that their work here was too important, whatever it truly was, and the two of them would be stuck here until the prearranged boat came to collect them before the winter set in and travel became impossible.
Afterwards she didn’t disturb him while he tinkered with the radio, or whatever other tasks kept him busy while they waited. With an end in sight Thalia found the exhaustion harder to keep at bay. She hated the small betrayals of her body as it began to fail her. It hurt to breathe, like bands squeezing her chest in cold iron, though she wouldn’t admit to it aloud. Curled in on herself she barely moved. The power became slippery but she conserved all her focus on it in an effort to maintain what warmth she could in their small nook of the station. It took almost everything she had left.
Tristan heard the soft pad of paws before she did, but it was Thalia who squinted her eyes at the shadow which sauntered from deeper in the station. It was the first time she’d opened them beyond slits in hours, though she hadn’t been sleeping. “I thought you left me,” she said, voice hoarse, as the cat-like creature trotted over. The cold did not seem to affect it. Nor did the accusation, despite the raw hurt in how she’d said it.
“Yes,” the Nemesyne said. “Glad the Tristan is safe. Surprised though. Mother will not be pleased if you broke something, little sister.”
“Where did you even go?”
“Busy,” it said imperiously, and turned its attention to preening. Under the cocoon of her blanket Thalia touched the ring on her little finger, and thought about asking if it could cough up anything else of use to them. But she couldn’t quite find the cohesion for words or humour, or even to voice more questions. It was becoming harder to make sense of things. Instead she sank into what she could only describe as a distant promise of warmth. That at least the creature had come back, at the end.
Neme swished its forked tail, and in almost the same moment the eerie silence of the station was broken as the radio burst into sudden, screaming static. A distorted, tentative voice drifted across the airwaves: “Hello?”
It was still a good hour before their rescuers’ journey across the tundra finally brought them to the abandoned station. To Thalia that first glimpse was just of shadows in bulky gear, faces obscured, their reactions peppered with surprise and disbelief. They paused at sight of Tristan; dishevelled, hulking, gold eyes catching the low light like a wild animal. Perhaps it was because of all the things he had told her before, but she felt her heart suddenly panic at the possibility they might view a monster and not a man in this eerily desolate landscape. The anxiety was strangely gripping, a fear magnified into the first steps of delusion, but neither could she shake it. She shifted unsteadily to her feet, brushed her fingertips against the cold edges of his in solidarity. “His shoulder is hurt,” she said to them. There was barely more than husk left to her voice, though she spoke with all due seriousness. Then the last vestiges of sustaining power fled, and with its final loss it felt like a cavern of emptiness had been punched right into her chest. Fortunately she remembered little of what happened after, for mortifyingly, she crumbled.
It transpired they were scientists working in another part of the island, and the only other souls here. Their reception was not unkind, but there was tension and lingering suspicion for two impossible strangers and the manner in which they had been discovered, not helped when Thalia repeatedly and feverishly mumbled Antarctica to herself like she couldn’t believe it herself. Their research base was smaller but more sleekly modern than the abandoned one they had found by the shoreline, and sat on higher ground – a trek Thalia and Tristan never would have made on foot, even if they’d known where to go. Once safely transported a medic there checked them over and treated what he could. There were hushed and guarded arguments about contacting the mainland for emergency evacuation, for which the consensus seemed to be that they were inexplicably reluctant to do. She never heard the end of the discussion, though. Unconsciousness claimed her.
Holding onto the power for so long accounted for most of Thalia’s rapid deterioration, and despite her battered and bruised appearance, after a few days of almost solid deep sleep she began to come back to herself. Being clean and warm was a revelation which brought her a distinct amount of joy. One of the women lent her a comb to untangle the knots in her damp hair, which she eventually outsourced to Tristan with a beleaguered plea for help. She’d first come properly to consciousness in a storage room (surrounded by drawings), which she later learned was because there were no spare bunks in the spartan facility, but it offered enough privacy for there to be nothing to explain about the artwork. She found nothing to complain about. Thalia adapted to thrive on very little.
She assumed Tristan had forestalled awkward questions, or perhaps given the undercurrent of secrecy it was simply an unspoken understanding which had knitted in place during the intervening days. When Thalia later asked, one of the researchers told her they were here studying penguins, but in such a way she knew not to ask again. As to their discovery, the scientists spoke of strange premonitions they mostly blamed on the island’s isolation and the months they had been out here, at least until the strange contact from an entity they called “The Wicked Truth,” which had urged them towards the same conclusion: that there were people in need of help elsewhere on the island.
She watched the beeping equipment sometimes and wondered if Sage was a ghost in the machine, still lingering there, but his contact was infrequent lest it spooked the scientists further. It was Tristan who told her what had been decided while she was still out cold – that their work here was too important, whatever it truly was, and the two of them would be stuck here until the prearranged boat came to collect them before the winter set in and travel became impossible.
![[Image: thal-banner-scaled.jpg]](http://thefirstage.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/thal-banner-scaled.jpg)