"I would prefer to... fly some more... first. When we go," she explains, her eyes closing as she basks, "we'll be on a specific trajectory, yes? I have... I have never flown freely before." Always stuck in a ship or a rocket. Always stuck, confined, either by the society she exists in or by the vessels she escapes in. No more, she tells herself, she will never be restricted again. The good thing about being immortal is that you have time. You have all the time in the world---time is your religion, time is yours to manipulate, time belongs to you. Valentina has //time// to soar through the trees and adore the clouds. Valentina has time to exist, now. They're finally back to Earth, and they have completed their mission, and their mission has been successful, oh, so successful, even if Larry Trainor willl never realize it. They're finally back on Earth, and their business has concluded. They will be reborn amongst the galaxies, their physical form crashing down to the worlds beneath. Valentina does swimming strokes in the air as planes pass around her, their lights blinding wide. She dodges them swiftly and with ease, already adjusting to the air. [[As she soars through clouds and sky, memories begin to bubble over.]]"Indeed," her Spirit replies. "I can form it to whatever you wish. And we... we may leave at any time." In the dimension Valentina smiles wide at her Spirit, and she makes chocolate covered prunes and pastries. In the pocket dimension her Spirit holds her close underneath the covers of her bed, and she sleeps every night in peace. In the pocket dimension she knows only tranquility, finally tranquility. Tranquility in freedom. Tranquility in her Spirit's love. [[THE END.->Untitled Passage]]POTENTIALLY. I BELIEVE THAT WOULD BE MUCH EASIER ON US THAN MERGING WITH A HUMAN. Valentina smiles, laughs, as she feels the wind surround her. She lingers in the skies, allowing her last moments of Earth to sink in. She flies in anxious circles before indulging the final memory: The first time her Spirit was intimate with her, she'd done so from the internal body, tendrils snaking over her flesh, petting her skin with a pure love, and the first time her Spirit //fucked// her, she fucked Valentina from outside, floating in the airlock. It was the first time Valentina had witnessed her true form -- how beautiful she was, her light illuminating Valentina's eyes as the somehow-solid fingers of her form thrust in and curled and massaged. They will get to do this whenever they want in the Spirit's dimension, unrestrained. [["We are ready," she says.]]They worked very, very hard on communication during their time in the airlock, and Valentina is proud of their accomplishment. She suspects that Captain Larry Trainor never discovered this, but Spirits can indeed communicate with their partners when both are conscious--- through words spoken in memories from long ago. Every time Valentina gets flashes of communication, the memories she sees feel so distant---she was a different presence back then, she was unmerged. In her mind: a flash of her mother when she was quite young, held close in her arms as she whispers, in Russian, YOU ARE MY HOME, MY SWEET. In another flash: her father, holding out his hand to guide her; LET'S GO. She gives a soft, faint smile, her lips curling crescent like the moon above. "What is it like?" she asks, as the glow begins to brighten. Her Spirit lifts the body into the air, levitates her slow through the trees of Cloverton as her hands dip down in intermittent strokes of wonder to touch the treetops. They never got a chance to fly around, so her Spirit is allowing her to adjust to the experience before thrusting her into space---how sweet, how kind, how beautiful. I COULDN'T --- DESCRIBE IT --- VERY WELL. IT'S BEAUTIFUL. SEE FOR YOURSELF. Valentina extends her arms out to her sides, twirls through the air in an act so human it disturbs her. [[She'll see for herself..]]A deep curiosity. "How far away is the rift?" she asks. ROADTRIP. FROM OUR PRESENT LOCATION --- APPROXIMATELY --- FIVE HOURS. ROADTRIP. Valentina laughs. She has such a sense of humor. Her Spirit has siphoned the humanity right out of her and absorbed it into her composition--- it is okay, her Spirit assured her, I can be human enough now for both of us, I can spread the humanity over us like a blanket in a blizzard and keep us warm, keep our eyeballs from freezing over and our breath from being sucked out. //You are tired of the burden of humanity, and I am enthralled by it. // "Five hours," she repeats, out loud, as they exit the atmosphere. Her Spirit's light flickers ghastly around her body. How shall Valentina spend the next five hours? [[NSFW: A surge inside of her as her head begins to tingle with soft, pleasurable electric shocks.]] [[Her mind starts to wander away, back to events from the life she is about to ascend out of. Memories begin to envelop her, her thoughts transported far, far away.]]I UNDERSTAND. Her Spirit rises their body up into the air. Valentina is allowed some time to adjust to the flying--she has never been able to fly outside of a vessel, has never been allowed to feel the wind in her dark hair and the bite of the cold against her skin as she moves. She twirls through the air, frighteningly human. Her Spirit takes control momentarily and spins her around, twirls her more, this time as if ballroom dancing; they're having //fun//. A laughing Valentina finally stops moving, embraces her calm nature once more. [["Let us go."]]When they enter her Spirit's dimension, they zap into the courtyard of a residential property. The skies above them are buttercup yellow and peach-orange, and the suns beat down warm. "Welcome home," her Spirit says, and Valentina hears her //true// voice for the first time, deep but singsong, gravelly but choral. Valentina hears an alien static in a language she cannot decipher at first, until the translation buzzes in: "She returns," says a different voice. "Great sun, she has returned." [[THE END.->Untitled Passage]]Her Spirit begins to pilot her at fast speeds through the air, so quick and swift that Valentina needs time to parse it all. This is her last tether to Earth, the only meaningful aspect of the planet that remains inside of her like a nearly-extinguished ember. She tries to snip it out of her in her mind, but fails; instead she wonders how long her flight will be. IT IS OKAY. TEN HOURS. ROADTRIP. ROADTRIP. ROADTRIP. Valentina laughs. She has such a sense of humor. Her Spirit has siphoned the humanity right out of her and absorbed it into her composition--- it is okay, her Spirit assured her, I can be human enough now for both of us, I can spread the humanity over us like a blanket in a blizzard and keep us warm, keep our eyeballs from freezing over and our breath from being sucked out. //You are tired of the burden of humanity, and I am enthralled by it. // Ten hours until they get to Russia—until she gets home—----- until she— Ten hours. She can make it ten hours. At first she had perceived her immortality as a curse, as a tarnish on her soul that made her essence irredeemable and rendered her some sort of abomination—now she can only view her immortality as the universe's gentlest gift, a secret that Valentina was entrusted to by the forces above and around her, a blessing. Valentina has time to exist. She will never die. She has time to go home, she has time to stuff the universe inside of herself and exhale the humanity out until she is filled up to the brim again with a Something Else. She has time to reminisce and she has time to go home and she has so much time that it is almost nauseating. No one was ever supposed to live this long this young—humanity has not reached harmony with itself yet, and it does not deserve eternal life, it isn't ready for that kind of responsibility, that kind of burden. [[But Valentina is.]] So her Spirit ascends into the skies. She moves Valentina upward, high and higher. Valentina controls her body as the Spirit controls the navigation, piloting her home -- to her //true// home. [[She really is ready.->"I love you too."]]Her Spirit has seeped into every aspect of Valentina Vostok. There is nothing about Valentina Vostok that exists outside of her Spirit, and the inverse is true also; they are one holistic being, cells entirely soaked with one another. Valentina's Spirit squeezes her heart into beating and flows her body through reality, and Valentina grounds her Spirit, hammers herself into a new form of shelter - one that can house them both. Their very existence is unprecedented. A soft internal rumble; her Spirit does not have to communicate through memories all the time. Sometimes she will give Valentina small bursts of overwhelming emotion---this time it is //understanding//. An //I KNOW//. "I know we told Captain Trainor we were returning to Russia," she says as she continues rising into the air, like some holy, fabled creature, "but I no longer believe that is a good idea." Her Spirit does not respond, because the same understanding applies. Her Spirit understands it all, every thought that even brushes against her mind. At first it was an invasion of privacy --- long, long ago --- now it is the only comfort left. They believed that returning to Russia would finally sever her last tie to the planet, but it is undoubtedly different there now---as was said, no one she knew is left, and if anyone remains in their final years of life, they would never be able to understand what Valentina has become. There is no one on Earth that could ever truly parse Valentina-Spirit -- not even Captain Trainor. She exists on an ascended plane, her soul stuffed tight into an entirely new realm even before she reaches the entirely new realm. And if she goes back to Russia, she will either want desperately to stay, or wish she never returned at all. Valentina passes through a cloud. With one hand, she strokes the other, strokes her Spirit in her mind, touches herself and pretends that she's touching her Spirit. She spins around again, breaking up the cloud's fluff. There's a plane nearby, so her Spirit pilots her underneath it, hides her in safe arms. I LOVE --- YOU --- US, her Spirit beams from just inside. They begin to rise higher. The dark city beneath them looks insectoid from this perspective---each illuminated building like a firefly, each individual antlike. Valentina feels the smile again, and smiles back. She wishes her Spirit would exit her body once more and fly her up into space cradled in those emerald arms, but they cannot be separated for too long lest she begin to crumble. They won't have that problem in her dimension. Their new home. [["I love you too."]]A young Valentina, playing in the snow, wrapped warm in gloves and thick layers and boots a little bit too big for her. She removes a glove briefly to touch the snow, feels the cold wet of it, smiles. She looks up into the sky as night falls. Then: baked pastries and chocolate covered prunes when she is a teenager, as she does her math schoolwork. It is advanced---she is going places, they tell her, or she would be if she was a-- Then: Niles Caulder's mission departs. Zip and Specs are so kind to her, and they don't underestimate her, and they call her //the Russian one// but they treat her like a friend, and she appreciates them. When there is an incident with some cargo near a distant planet, the spores enter their bodies. She must have been infected too---had to have been--- They die hours before Valentina is merged with her Spirit. They'd been on the course of the rift, having finally, //finally// reached it once more. The spores keep the radiation from slaughtering them----at least she doesn't have //that// on her soul. Her Spirit kills the spores within Valentina before they can kill her. She remains in the airlock long past the time she finally learns how to contain the radiation, simply because she cannot bear to face their living corpses. [[She almost doesn't notice the ball of light in front of her.]]At first they are only Valentina's memories. In her mind she goes back to dinners made by her grandmother. In her mind she goes back to spaceflight training, her first successful mission and the way the stars had enchanted her when she first met them. In her mind she sees the first woman she ever gazed at in a then-impure manner, and she feels the disgust she felt towards herself then, the hatred that hollowed her, and shreds it up with talons made of energy. Then--- Behind the fabric of those stars she saw, there lies a being. She sees flashes of smoke-colored buildings in her mind, yellow skies, two large suns in a close cluster high above. "Was that you?" she asks her Spirit as she passes a bird. I APOLOGIZE. "You never need to apologize," Valentina reassures her. "We are one." IT IS DIFFICULT. "Do you miss it?' Valentina asks. AT TIMES. BUT YOU -- ARE MY HOME --- NOW. THIS --- IS SIMPLY -- WHERE WE BELONG. [[Valentina nods as a bird lands on her arm.]]<img src="https://toothpasted.neocities.org/snow.png" border="0" width="500px"> They worked very, very hard on communication during their time in the airlock, and Valentina is proud of their accomplishment. She suspects that Captain Larry Trainor never discovered this, but Spirits can indeed communicate with their partners when both are conscious--- through words spoken in memories from long ago. Every time Valentina gets flashes of communication, the memories she sees feel so distant---she was a different presence back then, she was unmerged. In her mind: an officer on one of her first missions. YOU WANT TO GO -- then: NOT LEAVE. "Not yet... I know we have seen much," Valentina says, "but we have not seen all of it." She doesn't have to say the next part audibly, only exhales it within: //But I am worried that if I stay here any longer, I will become attached again, for after all, Earth is the most beautiful place I have ever known.// And she knows her Spirit understands. Her Spirit's light continues to emanate outwards, shining patterns and orbs into the darkness around her - they work together as one whole solidified being, but while Valentina has only one tether to Earth remaining, her Spirit, too, has only seen it in memories. Valentina has grown distant from humanity, has evolved far away and far past those who have only known the ground, but her Spirit has a curiosity swirling through her energy, a fascination with the world she never got to experience. "You can sense where my home is, yes?" Valentina asks, her palm closing over her chest. Her Spirit flashes green in morse code. YES. "Can you find it? Will you take us there?" A memory plays in her mind: a younger Valentina with space in her eyes, dreaming of stars, playing pretend in her backyard. In reality she's sitting in the top of a tree; in fantasy she is soaring amongst galaxies. She says it valiantly: I can do anything! I CAN DO ANYTHING. [["I want to see what it has become in our absence," Valentina says.]]It took them five years to reach perfect harmony. It took Valentina ten more years to admit that she had fallen in love. Later her Spirit would admit that she was always aware --- she lives in every neuron of Valentina, of course, she knows everything in Valentina's subconscious because she has nested there. She had never loved a man before. She had tried, of course. Her family had wanted her to, but space had been her true love; while the thought of being with a man had made her feel rather nauseous for reasons she could never decipher, the thought of soaring through the stars was always eternally comforting. She was -- it was simply --- it wasn't //right// to love another woman---was the Spirit truly a woman? Close enough---it was haunting, harrowing, to admit that she had these feelings, that flowers blossomed open inside of her at her Spirit's gentle touch and she could no longer hold in the overflow of her adoration. Her Spirit never understood it, the hatred that infected Valentina over this love. How could love ever be harmful? Love, her Spirit told her once, is one of the universe's building blocks. One of many. [[Another memory invades.]]She is under twilight, inverted halfway into the mindscape but still conscious of her floating body as the night begins to fade into star. The light surrounding her begins to harden into thick energy tendrils around her waist, snaking underneath her suit. In the mindscape: she is held in a hotel room, a honeymoon suite. Peeking behind sheer curtains, she looks down out of the window -- beneath them only more stars. She finds herself in a robe, reclines on the room's heart-shaped bed. It feels so, so good as her touch parts the robe in the mind and the tendrils slip between her legs in reality, curling over her, up and down flat, somehow wet like a human tongue. Inside of her mind, she traces circles over her thighs. "Are //you// ready, my love? Tune into me." She begins to glow even in the mindscape as she touches down. Her Spirit can tap into the pleasure she feels when she masturbates, can wrap herself in it and allow it to soak through her. It amplifies for them both---sex between Negative Spirits, she is told, is very different from sex between solid, physical beings, This, her Spirit told her, the first time they were intimate. is //better//. This time, she is given a memory --- so many layers of the mind here -- of her first time with her Spirit, the way she'd gasped //yes// and //please//, and she knows that these are her Spirit's begs now, in the moment, as they rise in every way imaginable. She quickens the pace of her touches, runs the fingers of her other hand over her nipple, slips one digit inside. //SO GOOD. Please. Please. // "Please," Valentina whispers, her voice a thick rasp. In space, the tendrils slither inside now, Valentina wet and slick around green. [[They break at the same time, convulsing in the air. Valentina swears she feels herself begin to fall for just a moment before her Spirit catches her.]]She holds her own hand to simulate contact as they fly forward, approaching the swirling light snail-slow. She is ready. Her entire life has lead to this, this is the culmination of her fate, the end of the first story before the sequel is written. (She'd loved literature, long ago, snuck books into her room to read when she had free time. ) A hand of light wraps around their form and pulls her in, enveloping her tight. The grip is not uncomfortable as her vision darkens -- it feels like a hug. [[When she reaches the entrance to the dimension, and is pulled in, the room is a comforting dark emerald.]]<img src="https://toothpasted.neocities.org/stars.png" width="500px"> But the same question applies. Where, exactly, does she go? Space is vast, and the universe is infinitely expanding outwards. So much to witness, so much beauty inherent to existence---she is torn. She wants to experience it all, to travel through the depths of space and witness wonders no other human ("human") will ever get to witness---at the same time she wants existence to come to her, to have an existence that isn't restricted to a space vessel, to have room to breathe and stretch and ascend. Her aura begins to glow a soft sea green. Her Spirit has helped her move past indecision; she is supposed to be one with herself. So she decides; it feels //right//: [["I have been waiting for this for a very long time," she tells her Spirit. "Take us home."]]Her Spirit rises their body up further into the air, still shining seafoam against the moonlight. Valentina looks down at the planet below her, the people shuffling through the streets beneath, living their lives free of the enlightenment that comes with merging. She inhales. "I have imagined your dimension often," she whispers. "But I have never seen it in memories. Why?" I ALWAYS KNEW --- WE WOULD GO BACK --- ONE DAY. I WANTED IT TO --- SURPRISE --- YOU. She feels an odd sensation inside, a warm twist in her stomach as a ball of calm begins to envelop her, tranquility growing over her like a second skin, like an exoskeleton---it is as if her Spirit, this beautiful faceless soul of energy, is smiling at her. "I understand," says Valentina. She looks down at her hands; even before her Spirit lit up she was glowing, her slender fingers rough from hard work yet still so soft when she touches her Spirit inside of the mindscape. "I feel... as if we are about to begin another life." WE ARE. The words come accompanied by a bouquet of Valentina's most cherished memories; her family and her beloved friends and her dear coworkers, her pets and the wildlife and each & every flake of snow that fell over her in childhood winters. She inhales again, slows her breathing to intentional control. In for six seconds, hold for six seconds, exhale for six seconds, repeat. She is preparing herself. She has always been preparing herself for this moment, in so many ways; during this time, she has discovered and experienced every aspect of her Spirit -- except one. Now she will finally be able to complete the circle, to pick up her pencil and draw a new line, a new life for them to live. ARE YOU READY? [["Yes," Valentina replies; it should be obvious.]] [["Ah, not quite yet," Valentina replies; she wants this, she does. It is all she wants, all that she craves down to her very essence. But...]]//OH//, says her Spirit in the mindscape, in a memory she does not recognize--the Spirit in some sort of room, a memory that does not belong to her slipping in for just a moment, for too long, not long enough. //MY SUN. OH, GREAT SUN...// Valentina finds herself panting as she returns to reality -- and when she returns to reality Earth is nowhere in sight, only starlight and thick black surrounding her now. She'd missed the loneliness of space. It is comforting in a way--the loneliness isn't loneliness for her. "How far away are we now?" 30 MINUTES. She cannot discern if this is caused by her Spirit, but a memory begins to form in the distance, foggy and blurred over... [[Until...->Her mind starts to wander away, back to events from the life she is about to ascend out of. Memories begin to envelop her, her thoughts transported far, far away.]]<img src="https://i.ibb.co/Kc4Y9ktK/Untitled1208-20250217193902.png" alt="Untitled1208-20250217193902" border="0" width="75%"> There is one question that has been slowly infesting Valentina since she left Niles Caulder's manor, since she buried her dear friends: what now? What does she do now, where does she go from here? She'll end up back in space eventually---she understands this as one of the universe's only constants, for the stars are embedded in each shard of her soul, the light of them reflecting off of her heart and into the light of the Spirit within. She will end up back in space, eventually, because she doesn't belong on Earth anymore; she is different, from other humans, now that she has been touched. And oh, how she has been touched. She no longer has any attachment to Earth; everyone she knew back then is surely dead now. [[She should probably head back now..]] [[But should she make some memories here first? She's going to live forever, after all. The planet might not exist for very long.]]"Little one," she says. "Hello." The bird, like her Spirit, makes everything okay. It preens itself on her as she floats. "Are there animals in your dimension?" Valentina asks. "I enjoy their presence." THERE ARE MANY, her Spirit beams within, THEY ARE -- DOCILE -- KIND. BUT THEY MAY APPEAR FRIGHTENING AT FIRST. "Do you have pets?" WE COEXIST. The bird flies to her shoulder and stares into her eyes before fluttering away, a beautiful encounter. [["Could one of your kind ever merge with an Earth animal?"]]The ground beneath them is slick and reflective, and she is faced with a vision of herself. A resurrected ghost wearing Valentina's appearance. "You must make a choice," says her Spirit through Valentina's voice. "We may enter my home, and return to my society, or we may enter a pocket dimension under our control and live any life we desire." Valentina thinks about it for a very, very long time. [["I want to understand you," she says. "Your home is where I belong. I have been waiting decades to see it."]] [["Any life we desire?" Valentina asks, inhaling.]]As a talented cosmonaut, her soul sharpened and refined and molded for the stars from a young age, only Valentina could ever hold a Spirit with true and unrestrained love. And her Spirit loves her, she does—she adores Valentina, she has entered Valentina never to exit, her soul thrumming around inside of Valentina's. Her Spirit has time, too. Her Spirit has learned how to be patient. Her Spirit has learned so, so much from her. Valentina thinks back. She peers into the past, her eyes squinting in the blinding of the lime green light. When they lost contact with Earth, she almost turned back, but the mission was too vital—or at least Niles had insisted such—and Valentina didn't really want to go home. She had always felt calmer when far, far away. So she stayed among the planets as they chased the rift around the universe, and when the rift disappeared - as it always did before they finally caught it - she remained calm, a subconscious understanding of her destiny forming like a baby in her mind. They continue flying through the air, soaring over snow and grass and tree, massive bodies of water swirling beneath them. Valentina wants to flutter around the skies again - to dip down into the water and wade in the lake, wet her hair and swim - but she has a mission. No; This is more than another mission. [[She began thinking of everything twisted, every action as a mission, long ago, and now she does not know how to stop it.]] Coming to Earth to allow Zip and Specs to rest had been a mission. She’d been trapped in the ship with their corpses for so long that she can no longer remember how to touch down with the living. This isn't right, but there isn't a point to being upset. Maybe she should go back, stop this now and change course upward, back into space, back to the Spirit's home in the stars. Maybe this was a very bad idea. No. Valentina and her Spirit come to every decision together. They work as a unit. There are no bad decisions. There are no bad ideas. How will Valentina pass the time until she reaches her village? [[She looks down. Maybe she'll count each star as she passes, maybe she'll try to find shapes in the clouds, maybe she will allow herself one last taste of humanity's spice.]] [[NSFW: Valentina has reached full harmony with her Spirit, and full harmony means that she, too, can control the mindscape at will.->Valentina has reached full harmony with her Spirit, and full harmony means that she, too, can control the mindscape at will.]] The last aspect of Valentina Vostok that remains similar to humanity is her search for meaning. There is always beauty in meaning, and humanity is always searching for meaning, and Valentina is always searching for meaning, hidden behind the door of every star. That's what humans are doing when they look for shapes in clouds and when they read books and when they write stories and when they gaze up into the galaxies at night from blankets laid out over ground. Humanity can find meaning in the oddest of crevices, and humanity can bond with the oddest of creatures, but at least they can still find meaning. And the clouds around her remind her of--- The clouds around her remind her of--- A flash of memory - but she doesn't recognize this one, and it isn't one she's repressed. She sees the aura of the past glowing green in her vision, feels the sense of a calming love flustering inside of her, [[and knows that this is her Spirit's memory poking through.]]In the mindscape, Valentina draws herself a bath in a wide heart-shaped bathtub. On the outside, her external body has its eyes closed as her Spirit pilots her all the way to Russia. In Valentina's perspective, she is dumping an emerald bath bomb in, watching the green water glisten around her. Her dark hair is wet, stuck to the back of her neck as she reclines in the curve of the tub. Jets turn on and bubble warm water all around her. She inhales. She wonders how much time is passing in the external world as she runs her touch over her nude body, setting her Spirit's sensation abilities far alight. Tracing hearts into her thigh, she gives a soft sigh outward. She knows her Spirit can tap into her experience, can embed herself in Valentina's own pleasure---she knows her Spirit can feel it too. [[YOU ARE VERY DISTRACTING.]] In the memory Valentina-Spirit is looking up into a yellow-peach sky, two suns radiating thick light down onto the landscape. There is a row of trees foresting around her---they all lack leaves, the branches thin and the bark a pastel sage. Valentina-Spirit is looking upwards at the skies of their dimension---there are clouds here, too. There is an animal brushing up against her Spirit's shoulder, a tall but noncorporeal shimmering creature that resembles an Earth moose with webbed antlers and long tusks from its mouth. It glows pink, and its head nuzzles into her Spirit's neck, her entirely-white eyes closing as she embraces the animal. She feels like her Spirit would smile here, if she could. When Valentina looks at the clouds again, the cloud in front of her are shaped like the Negative animal, and they are docile, kind, beautiful. She knows the answer already, but she touches her chest as her Spirit continues their soar. "That was your home, was it not?" YES. "It was beautiful," Valentina tells her. ...YES. [[They begin to rise high over the Atlantic Ocean, only dark water and storm in Valentina's field of vision, but the darkness, to her, is simply another form of beauty.]] Where others may find flying over dark open water to be frightening, Valentina only melts over the clouds, dispersing her soul amongst the atoms of the air. She can only feel calm as she watches her hands glow to light up the waters beneath, to spread comfort to all of the little fish in the sea who will never get to experience this kind of etheral beauty ever again. Her chest begins to flicker in morse code: I --- LOVE --- YOU. "I love you, too," Valentina whispers. Her Spirit takes control of her hand briefly, only to point downwards to the waters below---they go down closer, her light shimmering above the ocean, and she sees several dolphins jumping through the waters. "Hello, little ones," she says. EARTH IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE, VALENTINA. LOOK AT THEM. [[...I DON'T WANT TO LEAVE, her Spirit says. ]] OR: [["I know," Valentina responds, and there is sight of land.]]Her Spirit pilots her all the way to Russia, high over each country, so high she can see the break between atmospheres, so high she cannot see below the clouds, cannot see the lives fluttering about below. Her Spirit pilots her all the way home, her Spirit pilots her around the universe and into tranquility, into a better life. When she dips down closer to land, she recognizes her village in its place just outside of the city. "We are here." NOT YET. [[Her Spirit continues flying, circling through trees covered in thick snow, warming Valentina with her mere presence, until---]]The thought is separated from Valentina's soul, and it alarms her---but she knows that her Spirit would not voice the thought if some aspect of Valentina--some little fragment hidden away in a pocket of gut, however small---did not also have the same desire. Her Spirit wraps itself around Valentina to shelter her and her Spirit looks out the windows of Valentina's eyes to experience the world around her--they are homes for one another, each of their essences a floor in the two-story house of them. "I thought you might feel that way," Valentina says, sighing---not with frustration, but with a longing that suffocates. "I think I may feel that way, too." WE WILL SEE, HM? "We will see," Valentina repeats. "We have time. As long as we are together..." IT --- ONLY MATTERS -- IF WE ARE TOGETHER. "Exactly." [[She wonders what it would be like, if they stayed.]]She never thought she would be able to hold a life of normalcy in her hands, and she has never desired one--but if she goes home, she can make it into anything she wishes. She has access to Niles Caulder's finances, thanks to Captain Trainor. She can make a life for her and her Spirit on Earth, somewhere far out and isolated and distant. She could never live in a city again---even her home, slightly far out from the city, is still far too big for her. She simply doesn't fit in with humanity anymore---she is simply far too detached. But her Spirit seems enchanted by the human race, and it wouldn't hurt Valentina to become a little more in touch with nature, would it? NO. NO, IT CERTAINLY WOULD NOT. Valentina laughs again, her smile beaming down soft. [[And there is land, in the distance.->"I know," Valentina responds, and there is sight of land.]]"What are you going to do about it?" Valentina asks. Long tendrils begin to snake out of the tub's jets and wrap around Valentina's legs, petting her flesh with soft nips of suction. Valentina gives a sharp inhale when one of them begins to travel up her leg, circling between her thigh. She reaches down to stroke her Spirit's energy, and one of the tendrils moves over to stroke her cheek. Oh. DISTRACTING!!!! "Mmm," Valentina moans as one of the tendrils slips just inside, thrumming and rumbling and exploring her innards. Her Spirit knows every possible aspect of Valentina, her holistic lover, but she is never done exploring. The tentacle near her cheek pulls back hard against her hair, holding her in place as the tentacle inside of her begins to vibrate and pulse as it thrusts firmly upward. Valentina's legs tremble as her Spirit fucks her rough in the mindscape. In reality, Valentina's flight path zig-zags as both of them reach orgasm in their intimacy---for a moment she almost begins to fall, but her Spirit catches her, her Spirit will always catch her. [["I will never get tired of this," she whispers.]] When Valentina's eyes flicker back open into reality, they are above the Atlantic Ocean. She smiles wide, wide, wide. WE ARE CLOSE, her Spirit whispers through static. She'd gasped it, too - not// I am close//, but ''//we//'' are close, so close, oh -- they are one, and they experience pleasure as one whole merged being; when Valentina touches herself she is touching her Spirit and when her Spirit touches her, her Spirit is touching the sun. She is getting close to her home, and her Spirit got her closer to divinity. [[She sees land in the distance.->"I know," Valentina responds, and there is sight of land.]]She touches down on the ground near-- It is the home she grew up in, the house she lived in until she left for her studies at such a young age. She'd lost all contact with her family during the mission--none of them even knew what she was doing in Ohio, none of them ever knew. The house appears to be well kept, the stone exterior clean and unstained, two modern automobiles past the glass panels of the garage. It looks so different now. Exactly as predicted, nothing is the same. She peers through the window at two young children being fed breakfast---they look exactly like her brother had, as if they were ripped right from his image. "They're still here," Valentina whispers. HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL? [["I am not sure," Valentina replies, her heart sinking in her body. For one sliver of a second, she feels human again.]] [["We must stay," Valentina replies, her heart soaring in her body as she had soared over the skies minutes ago. For too long, she feels human again.]]DO YOU WISH TO MEET THEM? her Spirit asks, curling over with curiosity inside. "...No," Valentina decides. "We will make our own family." So they stay. They move into a more remote location on Dr. Niles Caulder's dime---somehow the Bureau money never fails her---a large, vast house that gives them everything they need. Of course, she cannot stay for long. They must return to space one day---it is inevitable, it is where she belongs. Their daughter is named Nadia. "//Hope//". [[THE END.->Untitled Passage]]So they stay. They move in near Valentina's great-grand nieces on Dr. Niles Caulder's dime---somehow the Bureau money never fails her---and her family grows to love their neighbor Anna ("grace", chosen to conceal her true identity, chosen out of appreciation for her graceful Spirit's blessing), their closest family friend. Of course, she cannot stay for long. Of course, eventually they will realize that "Anna" isn't getting older, and doesn't eat or drink, and then Valentina will have to return to space, because this, like all things outside of her Spirit, is temporary. But it works for now. Her Spirit gets to experience Earth, and Valentina gets to experience calm. And she's better with children than she ever possibly imagined she could be, even in this state of difference---her connection to humanity takes another breath. [[THE END->Untitled Passage]]