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She's here again. She's looking for someone.
She can't do it. She has to do it. It's time for this to end.
It doesn't.
The promise is fulfilled. Elster hopes Ariane won't suffer anymore.
...yet Elster is here again. Somehow, she knows how this place is laid out, intuitively.
Ariane can't remember her. Maybe it's enough to just die at her side, anyway.
She remembers the promise, this time. Elster feels like she's done this before, somehow.
It feels as if there is no point. Forgive her.
Elster is in that desert, again. A memory flashes through her mind: her mother is working a radio. It's not her memory. Her own memories still know how to get the radio here working. She sets it to broadcast before she enters the cryogenics room.
Elster opens the safe. She knows what to do. She has to die, but she still has to remember.
Perhaps it is her, continuing this. Even if Ariane died, even if Ariane forgot, Elster had to come back. For what? Some selfish belief that she could reach a satisfying answer? She cannot fulfill their promise, she cannot find an end to this. The only way to end this is for this to never end.
The last time they were truly happy, the broadcast was starting: that song they loved to dance to, ever since Ariane taught her how. That present love, enough to keep them going through having done everything they thought they could do in that cramped ship, seemed like it could stretch to eternity; before that transmission had been decrypted, before they knew they were doomed. She couldn't think about that. Not the future, not the past, not what they'd once hoped about, dreamed about; all had to be sacrificed. They couldn't talk, couldn't fix this, couldn't learn if this was truly enough to make both of them happy; the ruined state of the Penrose long after each of them had the strength to keep things going was too etched into her mind to fix.
But it had to be enough, this moment made to last, this happiness enough to satisfy them; it can only be an ending if she doesn't want it to end.
THIS SPACE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK