Solo Log: Lost Voyager

**885 Days ATE - Underground Bunker**

Nathan's journal is a humble leatherbound book, distinguished from all his research notebooks only by the lack of title. Cleone only recognizes it from one of their work dates: an extra volume accidentally grabbed alongside old notes one mid-autumn afternoon, an eternity ago before the end of the world. It's not something she would have pried into normally, reading someone else's private reflections an obvious invasion of privacy…except that now that's hardly the worst she's done to Nathan.

(He's not dead. He's not. This is just like Nalaam, when she realized she'd never be able to go home while the Obscurati maintained its hold on Danor. He's still out there, somewhere, just…inaccessible.)

(Haven't they been inaccessible to each other for long enough?)

Cleone still remembers the look on his face when she'd given the news of Luc's death. The thought that their disappearance after Av would have devastated him the same way curdles her stomach as she lays down on the hard stone floor in a bare corner of the most isolated room of the bunker she can find. She fights down a twist of nausea, lets Floyd out of his pouch to wander around the room, and opens the journal.

It's so easy to lose herself in the smooth strokes and curls of Nathan's handwriting.

The journal starts in summer of 501 AOV, Madame Andromeda's suggestion to Nathan's habitual difficulties keeping track of time in the Waking outside of the night sky. He writes just two sentences about their first significant encounter and another the next week about her thank-you cassoulet.

*Game this week: gin rummy,* he writes in late fall. *Form sets of the same card rank or runs of the same suit. Aces are low. Andi is talking about inviting people over so we have more players.*

*Cleone left a few days ago for knight work. She's afraid of someone she's expecting to see, but she's sure she'll be back. I hope she's safe.*

Fall turns to winter. *Cleone's 22nd birthday today. She came by with cupcakes. Note to self: find out more about devas.*

Winter marches on. *Whatever the knights are up to, I wonder if they know why Reida's behavior is so strange lately.*

*Third Wednesday without Cleone. I miss her enough that I think it may mean something, but there's not much use dwelling on it too hard while she's out on business.*

Winter 51, a date etched into her heart. *Cleone is back for a day. Kasavarina Varal is apparently her friend now. She stopped covering up her deva markings.* (There's a rough sketch of her face, marks included, with faint lines where he traces out a constellation and notes it resembles Mirphak the Voyager. Then a few crossed-out words.)

*It turns out she and I had the same kinds of feelings for each other. This isn't at all what I imagined and I wish we could have more time together, but* - a splotch of ink - *I'm happy*.

The end of winter, and time as known. *Time shouldn't just* end, *but I've checked and double-checked my results. Chatwood has confirmed as well. Is this what Constable Mona meant? Wherever the knights are, I can only hope they're back soon.*

A few days later, her visit to the Cloudwood. A new frantic edge to his words, the dread of a doomed plane and the inescapable Gyre. Frustration over the limits of a two-person team. Excitement and trepidation both when Cleone comes back from the symposium with news of revolution, but also academic opportunity. Musings on his father, and later on his cousins after their second visit to Axis Island. Warmth and delight, when she returns from her two-month trip to Danor. *It's over half a year now since we last got to work together. I miss the days when we could just sit at the dining table and share our ideas.*

156 ATE, the day they left. *Cleone and the others went to save Av. Once they're back, I need to remember to ask them about priority for the new planar icons.*

Two days later. *Av exploded. I don't know what happened.*

A week after that. *They've taken longer than this before. I know I need to be patient, difficult as it is.*

At the one-month mark there’s a series of scratched-out calculations, trying to relate Dreaming and Waking time. Even if she can't read it all, it's clear that Nathan failed his hopeless task. Cleone runs her hand over the deepest marks, bits of paper bunched up where pen pierced through completely, and blinks her tears away before reading on.

Two months. *Did I ask too much of her? Did we expect too much of them? If I hadn't told them about Av, maybe they would all still be here today.*

Four months. *We're still carrying on with the research. We have to, whether or not they're still alive. Completing the ritual will depend on the icons. There is no hope without them ~~even if~~*

Nearly six months. *Marisol finished the Icon of Venya yesterday. I waited the entire day for Cleone and her people to burst into the observatory to claim all five at the last moment.*

*They didn't, of course. I think we really did take them for granted. And because of that, I got them all killed. I suppose I'm more like Father than I realized.*

(Cleone nearly throws the entire book at the wall. But she doesn't want to hurt even the imaginary Nathan whose voice lives in its pages, so she can't.)

346 ATE. Cleone knows in her gut what this entry is once she sees the slants of Nathan’s handwriting take a subtly sharper edge.

*Pale blue light outside. The knights asked me about the same once, something the Obscurati used. It's nothing I've seen before, but my head is clearer than it has been in weeks.*

*I understand now why Father and Lya did what they did. I understand my own path forward now. Despite everything, the Obscurati has to be the answer. Maybe it didn't have to be once, but now they're all that's left. The only way to save Lanjyr - the only way to finish what Cleone and the others started - is to cooperate with them. There is no future otherwise.*

*If Cleone were here to see what I'm about to do, she might not forgive me. But I've already led her to her death, so it doesn't matter. Worrying about what she would think is a waste of energy better put to use carrying on her work.*

*I'm sorry, Cleone. You were a brilliant and beautiful woman, with a strength I never thought I could even come close to until now. I wish I could have had one more afternoon in the dining room with you. You were the person Lanjyr deserves, and I'll make sure everything you did wasn't in vain.*

From there is a short checklist of items to prepare for a journey across the sea. Cleone's eyes runs over the list a dozen times without comprehending before she gently shuts the journal and stares up at the ceiling, still flat on her back.

"I'm sorry," she whispers to someone who is not dead but still gone.

Nathan was wrong. It wasn't him who'd taken her for granted; she's the one who did that to him. She'd believed he would be there forever. Kasavarina had *told* her otherwise, pushed her to be with him because time was short. Cleone had seen it in Kasavarina's memories.

And yet every time she’d left - for Danor, for Ber, for Av - she’d always trusted that they'd have more time once they’d finished with Kasavarina’s memories. Once the Gidim were dealt with. Once everything had settled in Danor. Once they’d pulled another plane back from imminent destruction. Theirs was a relationship held together by stopovers and stolen moments, like she was a cursed seaman in one of Marcel’s docker tales, until she broke her unspoken promise and left him alone to believe it was his fault she’d failed him.

She curls up on her side, hugging the journal close. If she shuts her eyes and pretends, she can almost imagine the heat of his body. The warmth of his touch. The peace she used to find, in those increasingly rare moments alone with him.

"I’m sorry. I wanted one more afternoon with you, too."