The Justiceers - Part Three: Chapter Two
the next chapter in my forthcoming novel
The Justiceers
by Daphne Garrido
Part Three: The Will to Choose
3.2
This place was nothing compared to The Nebberath.
Miriam and Arthur were nesting in segmented quarters within a ship wafting through Grammaton’s orbit known as the Zeus — this massive cargo hauler had been repurposed to board refugees — they’d a bedroom, kitchen, the most depressing bathroom ever, and a smallest living space where Miriam now sat in meditation.
Urina had bought Arthur and Miriam passage, this system still operating on modes of currency The Justiceers would usually transcend by The Conclave’s resources at their disposal, continuing to find her presence in their lives fortuitous and coincidental — now more than ever.
Arthur’s dream had come with much knowing, receiving snippets of memory from a life once lived, now finding a wrought kinship to this woman which he’d shared a name in some distant life.
Miriam had been a dog.
She didn’t remember much of anything except for the smells of it, which were in fact quite divine to Celine’s nose. At least, that, and the newfound magnitude of peace she knew possible to feel in one’s heart. Peidirò’s lifetime, for herself, though of much shorter and humble making, had been equally perfect.
Arthur was finding himself incredibly healed to have witnessed his soul’s home within the universe in such immersive fashion, self-discovery and insight coming through its findings. Even if he’d cried awful lot.
They seemed nervous to tell her when they did.
Miriam had been sitting in this ‘god awful’ living room when they’d broke it to her finally.
There had been great discussion, explanations, they’d held her.
Arthur told her there, in the face of their newfound beliefs of heart discovered through experience of their origin planet, they may not even consider themself a man as she so saw them. Perhaps, even a woman.
Miriam took it was better than they’d thought she would. A part of her always having known she’d made her into the man she wanted her to be. Though she did beg there, not for her to do anything but what her heart so called, or to be anything but exactly who her spirit showed they were, only that she might still write about Arthur in the way she’d become so accustomed.
He’d said yes.
She’d explained further, without provocation; Scribe’s way, how important she felt it for the beauty of her language to have the additional pronouns to work with.
Miriam was proud of her Arthur for figuring himself out in his way.
Yet, she was finding herself a little frustrated with it all, confused what this meant about her perceptions of the god she so felt him to be, wishing herself both clarity on these ponderings and sights of that life in the sea she’d always longed to know more of.
She was jealous, as usual, that’s exactly what it had been. Besides that, the question plaguing her mind was why she felt so attached to seeing their godhood in a gendered way.
This night she was asking spirit to bring her clarity, both of the special place with some greatest sea her heart had told such tales of, and what all this new discovery meant about her own perceptions of spirit.
It wasn’t working though.
‘This place sucks ass,’ she’d thought.
Space was something Miriam found important to her well-being. A crucial part of her self-care came from having the room to breathe, not only regarding the squared-units of her residence, it included the need for separation from people of draining energies.
Miriam’s traumas of life had been healed by this goddess found within, witnessing herself so completely through their wisdom, but this had not overcome her general discomfort around others. She still saw reflections from her past in their stares, no matter where she’d seem to go within The Periphery, and there were always going to be some people that didn’t understand her expression of gender.
Perhaps that’s why Arthur had suggested how she might’ve projected her own need to be seen for who she truly was, in all of her womanhood, onto her perceptions of the ‘great light’ as he now called it.
It made her feel uncomfortable to have Arthur challenging her own assumptions, so used to being the one who saw things from beyond more clearly, but it felt right inside that she’d perhaps been skewed by her lifetime and all it’d brought into her body and mind.
‘Who fucking knows,’ she’d asserted internally.
Miriam decided she’d go to bed, eyes opening to the wall five feet in front of her face, feeling pissed off again about this ‘tiny shithole’, knowing she’d find more clarity if she just had space. Things always got so twisted when she was around people who made her feel less than she was, and there were eleven other tiny places just like this right out in the hallway, each with at least one person whose energy she was constantly working to keep from polluting her own.
Arthur had been asleep in the bedroom, and she’d taken place at his left side, snuggling up tight behind him as he dozed, feeling so warm inside as she’d pressed her body onto his back.
Only one Miriam was allowed in bed anymore, unless they were all fucking.
This rule was created at his own behest, having woken one morning, much earlier then they’d all expected, to discover two Miriam’s beside himself, then gone out to find the real one doing yoga.
Laurentine Daemenos nuzzling him in Miriam’s form hadn’t made Arthur feel comfortable, and so that had been the end of that.
Miriam would stay awake as long as she could every night beside her Arthur, and this night had been no exception. She’d felt his breath move her in such gentle ways, the way he melted back into her such unknowable treat to her heart, and always wanted to soak in every second of it she could.
Omirion.
The planet had been called Omirion.
Miriam was flying, piercing its skies, feeling her place; exploring.
This was it.
She was in astral form, within a spinning container of ethereal geometries. This was not like her and Arthur’s previous trip through time, Miriam had known she was traveling.
She also knew she was home.
The sea. My god, the sea.
White skylarks flew beside her, their name born to knowing upon sight, soaring above this ocean’s most beautiful waves.
The sun was so bright this day; a clearest sky. Sounds of the ocean below, its unending water surrounding her, caused Miriam to feel that very same perfection she had upon Peidirò with her Arthur.
It was called Temaeth. Oh god, oh god.
This sea was some crucial part of her soul.
Those surging swells had always been beckoning her home, its most beguiling storms now seen in her mind, Temaeth’s wonder forever bestowed upon her people here, their homeland within its depths beyond reach of the planet’s largest coral reef.
I could breathe underwater!
Miriam dove then, and she’d gone deep, Temaeth’s waters cleansing every bit of dirt from her spirit. How wonderful they were, nothing compared to the feeling.
She couldn’t stop smiling, laughing.
This really was the place.
Her consciousness shifted on thought of that city Miriam knew as her homeland, taking form along with it, and she was there. Her tears had become one with Temaeth at the sight, embraced within the sea’s enveloping sense of strength, allowed to release what had been so long stowed inside.
This is what she’d missed every second of every life; this was her Peidirò.
Miriam remembered where she lived then, a home near a garden at the center of the city, making way with greatest haste.
But wait, the sun.
Kowing she’d not be home, as there was work to be done in the day, she’d gone upward. This movement had been inspired most fully by her channel of spirit. Truth had dawned upon her with the breaking of waves; her place was where Temaeth met the sky, some shore nearby Miriam could see in her mind.
Then she was there — her place.
Miriam knew they would be here; herself. Heart was screaming about it.
She’d needed to find them. She was so excited to see.
Flying the coastline, some part inside telling the way, she’d see flashes of a darkness in the sky.
Not before her now, from some distant time.
Oh no. Oh god, no.
Miriam dove into Temaeth, its grasp a savior in this moment, feeling everything come back from the future of this place; her life here.
It’s gone.
The depth of every sorrow Miriam Halafax had ever felt found context in that moment.
Omiron was destroyed, violently, her life here cut much shorter than it should’ve been. This perfect place, her whole heart and soul, was gone because of hatred.
She could see herself fighting.
Her Arthur.
He had been beside her there, of grace, such fury.
The most beautiful thing she’d ever see; those images in her mind.
Oh, my Prince.
They were meant to be King and Queen of this place. It had been taken from them.
Never had Miriam felt hurt like this, but she knew it was only because it’d been at the root of every tear she’d shed throughout this universe.
She’d wanted more here, so much more.
I want to go back, I wanna stay.
Miriam’s soul had never screamed before, and she was screaming with it.
She couldn’t stop crying.
Taking time, letting herself feel into it all, laying upon her beach with hands buried in its sand, Miriam decided it time to see.
The sun was setting, but she knew they’d still be there.
There was a cliff face that rose so gently at first, a winding trailhead birthing from the beachfront, it grew so tall.
She’ll be here. She’ll be here.
Miriam flew to her observatory at that highest reach overlooking Temaeth. Though, she’d taken another break to cry before going inside.
Giving up the hope that she might stop weeping before she went, she’d just walked through the door, and found the most beautiful Princess she’d ever see; herself.
She was working here, an army of open books spread about; writing.
This had been the one.
Her story that had won her Arthur’s heart at last.
Pledged to each other at birth, untold for such lengths of childhood, they had very different experiences of the situation. She’d adored him so, and he’d wanted to be free and explore Temaeth without the pressures of their royalty.
From the time she was a girl she’d written her Prince. When a child it was poems, growing into her teens it had been love letters, coming now of age it turned to tales of the life she’d wish to lead with him.
Each one she hoped would bring him to her, every time.
It was then she’d realized her mistake.
No — this was the night. It was right now.
Not even knowing it possible, yet needing it to be, Miriam leaped into herself.
Gwevera, my name was Gwevera.
So much flooded in while she’d accustomed herself to residing within this Princess. Though it hadn’t taken long, she’d felt right at home.
The door had opened then, and he was right where she knew he’d be.
Morecai, my Prince.
He’d tears in his eyes like she remembered, holding that letter with all its many pages in his hands. Gwevera had charged him, having so waiting for that moment her whole life. Miriam was just along for the ride.
She was now the one adding to their own feelings of divine presence in the moment, knowing it more than just herself in this time of space, and that she’d be back often, as would Arthur.
She’d always been here for this moment; Miriam, from the very first time around.
It’s real. This place was real.
They’d taken each other to the sea then. Temaeth had never been sweeter to Gwevera Nightingale than that night.
The moon was showing as they dove in.
Miriam was swimming so fast, feeling it all for real at last. Morecai was taking her to his home; his room.
She remembered that now too.
Heaven.
Miriam awoke — tears already pouring down her face.
She’d rolled over then.
Her heart was in knots, all that pain coming back, seeing the truth of her sorrow for the very first time, knowing at last why she felt so without a home anywhere but beside her Arthur.
She’d reached to touch him, finding knowing in its blessing to her heart, realizing at last why she’d always seen him how she had.
Why she’d never let him go.
After a good time just letting those tears pour forth, she’d shook her head and laughed, finally wiping it all away.
“Well, that makes sense,” she’d spoken to spirit.
Arthur had stirred at her words
He’d rolled towards her, his own eyes so full of hurt, tears traced onto his cheeks. Miriam saw the anger in them. He’d remembered it all too now — the reasons they fought the way they did, all of who they really were inside, and why it mattered so much.
It took him a while to say it, his mouth having trouble forming the words, but he’d finally found a way, barely getting it through his gritted teeth.
“Yeah, it does.”
Not what I was expecting. Never cried this hard before. Her breaks were mine. I just had to walk in there anyway.