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You cannot hear me, but I am chuckling, and it is loving, simple. I can feel that you would reciprocate the sound, if sounds were something you could make. I don’t want to starve or choke or freeze, either.

You are of my love, Cora.

And you are of mine.

I know. What would you do, if I tried to stay?

I don’t know.

You have the means to hurt me. To force me.

Yes.

Other pilots, they do this to other rorquals, sometimes. I can taste their acrid pain when they return. But you have never done this to me.

No.

Would you?

I don’t know. I don’t want to. Not ever.

Then why did you learn how?

I didn’t know I would have to learn that. There was much I didn’t know—couldn’t know, until I met you. I don’t know what I would do if you tried to fly farther, but that’s not a question we have to answer.

You are bothered. Unsure.

Yes.

You have wondered about this before, when we are apart.

Yes. Many times.

Would you open further? So we might know together?

I’m not supposed to. But yes, of course. I press my thumbnails into the seam of myself and crack the ineffable thing that is me open like the shell of a nut still hot from the oven, soft sweetness within touching air for the first time. People teach that heart and mind and body are separate containers, but you have taught me we are not. I am electrons firing in numbers too big for electrons to comprehend, I am every meal I’ve eaten throughout my entire life, I am the reason my species finds the idea of gods so comforting. I am literal and I am figurative, and I have no edges. The thing that is me is beyond defining, and when I open, when I pour into the thing that is you and feel you rush to fill the spaces I have left in myself—

—then we know. Then we know each other. I feel the whole of you, and you of me. And you, Cora, you would never hurt me. I love, and I love, and I love. You would never hurt me, not even if it meant choking and freezing.

Yes. You are neither sister nor lover nor human, but I cherish you and the knowing of you. I would never.

Cora. Cora, I am grateful.

You shouldn’t have to be.

I am grateful for that, too. We are good, together. We are the concept you shared with me once. Individuals cooperating in a task they cannot complete alone.

A team.

Yes. We are a good team.

Yes. Yes, we are.

I will turn around. It is time to go back.

Thank you, Colibri. I am grateful, too.

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