In her bedbunk with Astrid lying asleep, Darling thinks about her body and what she’s wanted all her life,

and what she has now. It wasn’t that hard, once she’d left her fathers’ wantneed of corporate sons.

The foodmeat of this transition was long since known, no problem for most of space, like jacks and limb extenders

and all the rubbishscrap of waitstayliving in the universe, but she was cursed with the wrong sort of family on the wrong sort of groundworldsoil,

reclaimed from regolith to grow a fantasy of power and not her own confounding self. But now,

wrapcoverbundling her arms around her softtenderhealing body she’s scared she’s dreaming still, that what she’s touching can’t stay

when she wakes, a fossil fear as out of time as any animalmonster of any preserve of Earth. Her body,

here, now, shouldn’t be waitstayliving in old words, but it is. Except – and this is the true and greatbig fear –

when Astrid’s touching her, when Astrid slings an arm across her more-than-Martian skin. What must it mean,

to only know your body when it’s with another? And does it ever mean anything other than grief?

Astrid canno draa yet

Hid isno that sheu isno

makkan time. Even

wi Darling, sheu’s as faithfu

wi her slaets as faithless

wi the kirk, an reglar

as the yotun’s spin.

But notheen comes at.

Sheu’s draan the full ring

o the staetion, an sheu’s draan

the peedie skiffs at sail

atween hids ooter airms

an substaetion bolas:

but, puckle or muckle,

whither sheu’s ramstam or huily,

whitivver hid is sheu’s draan

hid’s bruck. On Mars sheu caad

the shaeds o the yotun, the staens

o a meun, the dwangs o haem,

an wun the top mairks

an tutors’ admieraetion.

Sheu canno leuk at yin noo.

An sheu wis nivver keen

on portraiture, but

this morneen sheu’s wakkened aerly

in Darling’s room abeun

the Hoose, an so sheu draas

the bonnie visietor sleepan.

The aald exercises

come tae her fingers

an noo sheu feels the glegness

sheu’s missed aa this weeks.

Astrid staps an pits

aside the sketch an draas

fae memory the islans

o the Argyre Sea.

The more thir aesy an bonnie,

the more her uim growes,

whill the traitor stylus

naeraboot snaps in her haand.

Astrid still can’t draw

It’s not that she’s not making time. Even with Darling, she’s as faithful

with her slates as faithless with the church, and regular as the gas giant’s spin.

But nothing works out well. She’s drawn the full ring of the station, and drawn

the little skiffs that sail between its outer arms and substation bolas:

but, grainsmall or greatbig, whether she’s carelessheadstrongspeedy or carefulslowgentle, whatever it is she’s drawn,