Nebo & Tenger

I look up.

Not at the sun, that would be stupid. It would merely burn out my eyes.

No, I look up at Tenger. It is on the other side of the world. So far away, so far from us, so far from here, so far from hope. The sun never set within Khüree. How could it? It was within the world and there was no place to hide from its interminable glare.

I sighed and watched the lights flit and dance in Tenger. They must be bright for me to be able to see them so far away. There were shadows from things vast and wonderful. I didn't know what they were. Flashes and dances, fires and torches greater than any a mere man has wielded.

It had to be Tenger where the souls when when a person died. It was too far away, too beautiful for a merely mortal realm.

I turned back to my sheep and herded them. The plain was bountiful for a grassland and stretched as far as the eye could see. Green with the rains from the uncrossable khüchtei dalain.

I tried to focus on the flock. My father had beaten me the last time because I had lost a sheep: I had been watching my tenger too much and a grue had snatched a lamb. It had erupted from the ground while I was staring up. Had I not been, I'd have been able to shoot it. Instead, it grabbed the animal and disappeared before I could raise the rifle and there was only disturbed Earth and a scattering flock when I did react.

I wanted to be free. Not a herdsman, not a sheep herder, not to live my life and be confined to the green and unending sun. I wanted to go to tenger. I wanted to live a life free of hardship, a life where I could spend my time thinking of the good things and have a care free life.

I looked up once more though I should not. Tenger had more flashes today than I'd ever seen before. It was so beautiful. I longed to be there.

What I didn't know was at the moment on the other side of the Dyson sphere, Vladimir looked up. He was in a trench and the ground had been bucking like a wild horse. He was a soldier and he was fighting in a war, a terrible war almost 250 million kilometers away. Nuclear weapons, crude things of uranium, had ben blasting around the battlefield for a decade now. Those were my lights. And they had stunned him in his trench.

He was shell shocked as looked up. Looked at me, Nergui.  Though neither of us knew it, could know it, we had looked straight at one another. He stared at the green around me. He didn't know I was there. The Human eye has limits.

He lay sprawled on the bottom of the trench. He looked at where I was and unknowingly me. He lie there and thought: There. That green. It is nebo. So green and peaceful. So without care. So without war. So beautiful. It must be nebo.

He would see it soon. He would not survive the next volley. Nebo. It was green and peaceful at least.

I knew nothing of that. As he knew nothing of me. We each dreamed of what we thought was Heaven. Neither knowing the truth.