[Honkai: Star Rail] Dignity

[duckiesandlemons]

Title: dignity
Rating: G
Fandom: Honkai Star Rail
Characters: Argenti/Dr. Ratio
Summary: Ratio has witnessed the death of a star.
Warning(s): None



Ratio has witnessed the death of a star.

It had been once, in passing. Someone in the IPC handed him a ticket to an event touting that it was a once in a lifetime chance. For the up and coming doctor this is a gift to thank him for all that he had done. Veritas was young. He was stupid. He was still filled with longing for acknowledgement and so took that ticket offered to him. He went on a ship, IPC made, and stood in an observation station where people gathered dolled up to the nines. The timing of the star's death had been calculated to the millisecond. It was studied over and over again to reassure that it was safe. No supernova, no black hole—it was safe, like all IPC hosted events are.

Someone laughed loudly. It was followed by the clinking of glass and the rattle of ice. Veritas stood by the observation window and watched as that swirling red mass of helium, hydrogen and cosmic debris trembled under the weight of its final moments. Someone had approached him to talk about something. Veritas had dismissed them. Another person bragged about the credits they made on some backwater planet, someone called them a crook with an amused tone. A waiter stopped to ask if he wanted another drink. Veritas kept staring at that star. He thought of the spectacle of it all.

The star's mass swirled, endless, hypnotizing, its surface broiling with heat, with desperation. Foolishly, Veritas thought that it still wanted to live. He thought that it still wanted to shine. A light in the darkness of space. A beacon of hope.

Veritas blinked.

The star collapsed, quiet but loud.

A brilliant flare of cosmic light, painting the cosmos with reds and blues and purples, its core pulsing with its last gasps of life. No one around him bothered to look. They clapped, polite, but their conversation went back to normal. How shameful, how…undignified. A star's death made commercial spectacle. A farce, a show, a simple way to make money.

And, perhaps, that is what he thinks now as he sits next to Argenti. Their hands are tightly clasped, Argenti's grip firm despite his shaking. A knight's quiet crumbling of faith, collapsing as mundanely as that star. Undignified, quiet but loud, with Veritas there to witness.

"…Idrila is not dead," Veritas says.

"Such soothing platitudes are unbecoming of you," Argenti replies. "But this awkward kindness is what makes you—"

"Do not force yourself to speak. Mourn if you must, for nothing good will come from you keeping it bottled up."

Argenti gently squeezes Veritas' hand.

Veritas feels the weight of years of searching in that one simple action. He feels the weight of  chivalry, of simple lies told in the darkness of space for paltry comfort. 

"I…will keep looking." Argenti whispers. "Even when all seems lost, I will keep looking."

Veritas thinks of the death of that star.