Chapter Text
Essen Korben had always been the kind of person who thought that the word “soulmate” was made up by the old greeting card companies to sell more overpriced printed cardstock. Sure, on the outside she always seemed cheerful, but on the inside? That was a different story. Inside, Essen’s heart was as hollowed out and dusty as the mining planet she came from. She was pretty happy keeping it that way, too. If she’d made it this far in life without leaning on someone else, why would she start now?
It could hurt, sure. Of course she would never admit it, but on shore leave sometimes she’d catch herself staring wistfully across the bar at a particularly entwined couple or throuple or octouple. But if you throw back enough shots, you can forget anything.
***
She’d had one, once. Someone she could call a soulmate. It hadn’t lasted. Good things never did. Not for Essen. She was done trying. It gets to a point at which it isn’t worth the effort anymore. There are some things you can’t even let yourself linger on in thought, not a memory of the past or a longing for a future. She’d catch herself remembering, lying on her side in her bunk in the sterile glow of what passed for night on the ship. Dark curls brushing across her face, an ice cold hand at her throat, the monotone whisper of her name. Then she’d shudder awake from the thought, try to shake it away.
It wasn’t even the memories so much that hurt. It was the humiliation that came afterwards, the fact that Essen had let her guard down for long enough to fall for someone, to trust someone, and then that someone had turned out to be a liar. “Dumb bitch,” she’d whisper into the half-dark. She wasn’t sure if it was aimed at herself or the memory of what once was. And then she’d fail to swallow her tears, shaking with grief until one of her bunkmates grumbled sleepily about the noise. The universe spun on.
***
It hadn’t always been this way. Essen was pretty sure of that, although she couldn’t remember much of it now. The way her mother told the story, Ess had been a bright and curious child. As bright as one could be on a planet covered in dust, of course. To be honest, she wasn’t too sure if Evaera was still classified as a planet these days. The planet had no native life when it was colonised several centuries back. No one could possibly want to live there. The only reason it was settled was because of how rich the tiny planet was in minerals that Terra had long since run out of. Mines were scraped into the dusty soil, and generations came and went, digging the planet down to its bones. The soil and chalky rock of the planet weren’t really conducive to the intense strip mining process that the Terran companies favored, but it didn’t matter. The bottom line was all that mattered.
By the time Essen was born, third child to a family of four, four generations of Evaeran settlers deep, the air was so thick with dust that you couldn’t even see five yards in front of your own face. It settled in your lungs, clung to your skin, put grit into every bite of food you ate. Needless to say, life expectancy wasn’t very long on Evaera. If the mines didn’t collapse on your head, if the dust didn’t drown you, they said you’d start hearing voices a few years in. The howling of the wind morphed into something sinister, so you were always watching your back. Most people didn’t make it long enough to confirm this account, though, so who knows. The mines usually were able to finish the job before your second or third decade was up.
Essen started mine work when she was just nine Terran years old. Her father had noticed her interest in nuts and bolts and wires. She rode on his back down the mineshafts, and he’d teach her what he did for a living, how to repair the elevators, mining drills, the carts that carried the chipped away rock back to the surface of the planet. Soon she picked it up for herself, and by the age of eleven she was scampering about the shafts by herself, sliding into places grown men couldn’t reach to reattach wires and flip breakers.
It was sheer luck that she wasn’t there when the mine took her oldest brother. A branch of the tunnel collapsed in a rain of rock and dust. Their father stood just a few yards away, made it out with nothing but a few bruises, but he watched as his only son was crushed by the planet he’d spent his life serving. It changed him, irreparably. Essen’s father muttered and moaned, answering voices only he could hear. After the company allotted mourning period was up, he stayed at home, pacing the floors, tearing his hair. The rest of the family tried to pick up his quota, and the village looked the other way out of respect. The universe spun on. He would settle back into routine in time, they all said.
If only it could be so simple.