“Mew?”
Nakht and I both perked up at the sound.
“Did you hear that?” he asked.
It was obvious I had, and we released the grasp of our hands to begin looking for the source. The sound had seemed to come from a small costume chest that rested on legs high enough for a small kitten to climb under and would usually give plenty of space to climb back out, except several items had been stacked around it.
I dropped to my knees to begin moving the blockages out of the way, and Nakht joined me. Once we had a clear enough view to look under the chest, a tiny white figure was already crawling toward us from beneath it. She gave another plaintive mew before escaping the prison she had inadvertently found herself in, and emerged, a blinking ball of white fluff with the faintest of dark markings. The signature spots of her breed would only appear as she got older.
“Hey there, girl,” Nakht said, instantly reaching to pet her. We hadn’t checked to confirm whether or not she was female, yet I knew we had both guessed correctly. She leaned up into Nakht’s caresses with clear gratitude for the rescue. “I don’t remember a kit like this in any of the recent litters, do you? She’s beautiful. Have you ever seen such a pure white?”
“I don’t think so,” I said, but while I reached to pet her too, my eyes quickly moved to Nakht, watching the joy alighting on his face where distress had so recently settled.
“You’re probably hungry, aren’t you?” Nakht continued. Since the kitten was proving grateful and affectionate, he scooped her into his arms, and she allowed him to cradle her without fuss. “Since we have a break, should we take her to the kitchens?” He looked at me, so beautiful for one so young, and I noticed a stray tear streak down the length of his cheek that he must have been holding at bay until a different emotion had allowed it to slip free.
The kitten tried climbing up his tunic, and Nakht giggled as he was distracted from his request of me to lift her to his face. Shelicked at the tear track, and Nakht giggled again before ducking his head, as if wanting to hide that a tear had been there so I wouldn’t pity him.
I would never pity him. As peers, we weren’t called to pity each other but empathize. There was nothing to pity. So, without calling attention to the tear the kitten had licked, I reached once more to pet her head.
“Let’s,” I said. “Go to the kitchens, I mean. I could use a snack too.”
Nakht beamed back at me. “If she hasn’t been named yet, how about we anoint her after the lioness goddess?”
“Pasht?” I questioned, and as soon as I said it, something… familiar stirred in me.
“Yes! Exactly! Something strong and clever.” Nakht stood, still holding the kitten. She looked so at home in his arms, like both had needed each other in this moment and were better for it. Just as I… I had been better for it from the moment I met Nakht.
That was when I had truly accepted that I liked him. When rivalry had turned to respect and fondness. I would not love him for some time yet, but we were friends from that day on.
From that day on…
“Thank you, Meryt, for—”
I whirled around, desperately seeking therealNakht like I had in my previous memory. I hated that I kept forgetting him and always remembered too late to truly—
He was there, standing directly in front of me, as near to me as he had been when I threw myself at him the last time, only now, I was too afraid to move closer.
We were still in the practice room, weren’t we? But I couldn’t hear anyone in the room next door. I dared not glance back at where I had left the younger Nakht either, but I sensed he had vanished with the others.
We were alone.
“Meryt?” Nakht spoke to me, and my heart fluttered in my chest to hear his voice.
I was Meryt, the real, current day Meryt, as grown into a man as Nakht was, and dressed in my blue dancer’s attire just as he was wearing his red.
“Meryt.” Nakht made to reach for me but hesitated.
I wanted to reach for him too, but could I? Could we?
I raised my hand slowly but still not far enough to make contact. “I fear that if I touch you, you’ll vanish,” I admitted. My voice almost sounded strange to me, since I had been hearing it younger and younger.
“I fear the same. But it is you?” Nakht asked.
“It’s me. And you?”
“It is,” he said, voice cracking and expression bared open with raw emotion. “I have almost finished, Meryt. I have almost saved you.”
Because I was dead. I had died on that corridor floor with Nakht sobbing over my body. “And then what? Do you know what the gods will grant us if you succeed?”
