Star-Crossed in Voidtime
Introduction
This story is my take on the old adage that somehow love always triumphs. Two individuals once in love, one of them slammed through a time vortex and accelerated in evolution thousands of generations into the future and yet somehow they still recognize each other…is that even possible? And of course their love is unrequited…separated by so much time, by change, by evolution, that they can never really come back together again and that makes the circumstances all the more poignant. Is this just so much mush? Probably, yet time and evolution change some things and not others. This story is a meditation on the constancy of a powerful love, a love that can span generations of time.
The story implies that Nico (aka Kolohee, in an earlier life) is some kind of wounded warrior, a veteran of countless battles in this strange space called voidtime. In some ways, she is only a casualty, of the Time Wars alluded to, of the strange effects of voidtime, of the battles and the harsh life she led after being ‘accelerated,’ and also a casualty of the separation and loneliness that warriors always feel for their loved ones back home.
Perhaps the memory of a former love is all that casualties of war ever really feel…maybe that’s what sustains them in battle. They cling desperately to anything that feels like home and family, even if it’s a mirage…or a memory.