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You hadn’t lied to Thelonius.
“It’s… everything I dreamed. So much green. There are trees everywhere, and water. And the air. The air smells… sweet. It’s so beautiful.”
Every part of that is true, and yet it so understates the beauty of the planet your feet are firmly, finally, incredibly, standing on.
It was everything you’d dreamed. You’d taken the hints of colour that the Ark gave you – patched clothes in what you thought was a rainbow, a kaleidoscope of colours; the view out of the windows, looking down at earth from afar; old tapes and videos. You’d internalised them all and prayed that your grandchildren would get to see them occurring naturally.
Now you are seeing them.
Not just them, though – so many more. You’d had no idea how vibrant colours could be. You’d loved Raven’s red jacket for its vivacity, its obnoxious brightness in your metalled, grey world – but you had no idea how much more red could be.
She’d dragged a limp-looking red-orange flower from her pocket, when you’d found her in the drop ship, half-dead and unable to move. She’d told you how it had been raining when she’d landed, and how these flowers were so bright, so perfect. How it had smelled so… indescribable. She’d told you, in her pain-filled haze after you’d carved her open with a scalpel, all the colours of the trees she’d seen on her way to the bridge, and how incredibly white the stripe on the horse’s face was.
You’d realised during her surgery that the brightest colour you’d ever seen, before earth, was the shocking claret red of blood. You know you’ll never again consider it vibrant.
“Petrichor,” she’d whispered to you. In the orange glow of the makeshift hospital tent, she looked even more pale and sickly; she needed an anaesthetic, but you had none. She was half-mad with pain, and you’d done it to her. You could hardly bear to look at her, but once you had, you couldn’t tear your eyes away from hers – they were bright, alert. “Petrichor. I’ve been trying to remember it. That’s the name for the smell after the rain.” She sighed. “It was so beautiful, Abby. Everything was darker when the rain had stopped. The earth was stained wet, and the leaves glittered. It all looked so healthy.”
Petrichor.
You hadn’t heard the term before; you wondered where she’d picked it up. You tried to bring the smell she meant to mind, but it was like trying to catch smoke, it was just impossible to hold it for long enough to examine it. You tried the name; it didn’t fit, not for you the same way it did for her.
Your head was too full of colours. You were bewildered; the kaleidoscope wasn’t spinning, you were, and the colours were a whirlwind around you. Green stood out the most, so many shades, so many varieties. The Ark looked out of place among them, a hunk of your old monochrome life standing starkly amidst earth’s exuberance.
Sometimes you wanted to screw your eyes closed against the onslaught. Sometimes you wanted eight more eyes, so you could truly see the variety, the beauty. You wanted to live vicariously. You wanted to be free.
Petrichor.
It was a grounding word. It brought you back down; it reminded you that Raven’s leg was numb, that Raven herself was no longer celebrating earth, but pining for zero-G; it reminded you of her sad, faded red jacket and her mournful expression. Petrichor. It reminded you of the first time you heard it uttered; her dark eyes, alert, amazed by the world and everything in it. Dark eyes darkened with pain, like the dark ground is darkened with rain.
Petrichor.
To you, it isn’t a smell, it is a colour. Her colour. Raven.
She has become your anchor. She is your centre point, and you revolve around her, and the colours settle down in your peripheries. You are still astounded by their beauty, but you are not distracted by them. You are still terrified of their variety, depth, openness, but your fear does not freeze you; she is your motivation to fight on. Her blood, spilled again by Lexa’s blade, is not vibrant, is not fascinating; you bind the wounds carefully; it is not a shade you wish to see again.
Her eyes catch yours and hold them, a silent thank you, a nod; they are a subtly different shade to the last time you really looked into them, full of grief and loathing, and you wonder how you had failed to notice the shifts in eye colour when they were some of the most colourful things in your world. You smile back, a weak lift of the lips. You remember the way her eyes had looked on the Ark, when you had walked to your death as she fell to hers –
“Abby, they’ll float you.”
“Then they’ll float me.”
You sigh, a trembling, calming sigh, like the breeze through the green leaves – so many shades of green. She is standing, now – watching proceedings. Strong.
She anchors you. Her eyes are as varied as the leaves on the trees; as dark as the soil after rain.
Petrichor.
It sounds like home; smells, feels, tastes, like home.
“One day,” you tell her weeks later, “I want to build a house somewhere. When it’s peaceful. I want something natural, not the Ark. Fallen trees, all stacked together with leaves and moss filling the cracks. Some part of the earth that feels like home.”
She looks away from the underside of the forest canopy and smiles at you. Her eyes are dancing. “It sounds perfect,” she answers, and you wonder if you imagine her sounding a little sad, a little wistful. “What would you call it?”
There is no hesitation. “Petrichor,” you tell her, spinning slowly around in the little clearing that has become just yours and hers, your space to talk, or just sit and be. “You could help, if you like. We could make it ours.” You wonder if that’s a little forward, a little much – but she must have noticed the way you look at her, the way you revolve around her like she is your sun.
“Petrichor,” she whispers. “Why?”
You lean towards her, put a hesitant hand on her cheek. “You told me the word. It reminds me of you, of – of your eyes and your strength. It’s become you, Raven, and you are my home.”
She smiles more widely, and tears fall from her beautiful dark eyes, splashing onto the forest floor. Petrichor. “Me?” She murmurs incredulously.
“You,” you confirm, not knowing how to be awkward around her, not knowing how to feel embarrassed at how much of your heart you have just shared. The leaves dapple shadows over her cheeks and she takes a deep breath, dark eyes creasing as she smiles.
She leans forward too, bringing her hand up to hold yours against her cheek. She watches you as your eyes follow hers, closer, closer; it’s almost too late when you realise what she’s doing and flick your eyes to her lips.
She kisses you gently, firmly, gently; she’s everywhere, everything. One of her hands snakes around your waist; she steps in until her hips meet yours and a shock of something jolts through you, like lightning through the rain. You shudder and smile and pull at her, wanting her closer, wanting more.
“Petrichor,” she whispers as she breaks away, only millimetres, only far enough to breathe words into the tiny space between your lips and hers. “It’s perfect.”
You are, you agree silently, staring into those petrichor eyes, breathing in her petrichor smell, licking your lips to savour her taste. Your heart pounds. You feel more alive than you have since the first moment you climbed out of the Ark and described the view to Thelonius, orbiting above.
You’ve discovered so many colours since that moment; so many variations, so many shades and mixtures.
Her eyes are your favourite of them all.