People often asked Pledge-Speaker how he had ended up falling in love with someone from a world so distant, particularly when he had never left his birth planet until the day it became inhospitable to life.  Telling stories had been his life's purpose, the reason for his duty-name, so of course, he was happy to explain... and he always began with the accident.

The wreck burned brighter than Addmoh's dying sun, and unlikely as it was, survived its fall through the atmosphere to crash land just over the ridge from one of the last remaining settlements.

He didn't expect there to be survivors- but they found them, a small group of varying species... and amongst them was Sola, the person who would become his life's love.

At first sight, his reaction to them had been curiosity.  An abnormally tall being with pale green skin, helping another survivor to stand with one long tendril that emerged from the center of their back.  Most intelligent species had similar facial structures to his own, but this being was an exception.  They had a mouth and a nose, which was noticeably more prominent than his species' narrow slits, evolved for this dusty world... but they had no eyes.

They introduced themself as Sola, speaking the language of the inner systems softly, with slight mistakes that gave them away as a non-native speaker.  They were interested in this place, why there were people still on this planet, so close to a dying sun that would soon swallow it up... If he was honest, he was as curious about their planet as they were about his.  The universe was a wonderfully diverse place, and here, one didn't get many visitors. 

The climate hubs of Last Settlement weren't attuned to their needs- as much as the technicians tried, they couldn't match the light of Fai, a planet with multiple young suns.  Sola's whole body detected light, craved it, brighter than anything he had ever known.

Over the following weeks, he watched Sola's health decline, until they could barely speak... the animated conversations they'd had early on replaced by silence as he feared for the stranger he had begun to grow close to.

He had made clear to them his duty to his planet, the pledge he'd made when he was almost too young to remember, in the underground ruins of First Settlement.

I pledge to serve the birthplace of our ancestors, the planet that sheltered our kind, like a mother.  I pledge to stay beside her until her dying day, to learn all she has to give, to preserve her stories for eternity.

But when Sola left, after they so gently separated outside the leaving ship, he had made another promise.

"I will see you again."

But what could he do, when those promises conflicted so terribly?

———-

Time passed.  Planets spun, Addmoh's sun grew, and life went on- but another constant had been added to the routine of his life... letters.

He and Sola exchanged letters regularly. Through them, they said the things they hadn't had time to say in those weeks after the crash.  Their tentative connection grew into love- the sort that usually would bring two people together in person, if it were only possible to do so.  He even told them his birth name- the kind of familiarity which was, in his culture, saved for family and partners alone.

They seemed to accept their fate as lovers, worlds apart... and the years continued to pass.

The star was beginning to accelerate its growth; there was much to prepare.  He was so busy that it took him quite some time to realise that Sola's letter was well overdue. 

He sent another letter, asking whether they were well... there was no reply.

But perhaps there would be...

He couldn't leave.  Waiting was all he could do, busy himself to distract from the ache of not knowing.  Sola had lived a good life- they'd both led happy lives apart.  He hadn't thought of this dying planet as a prison in years, but now he longed for escape. The whole universe would soon be his to roam freely.  But the idea of not finding Sola at the end of all this... it hollowed out his heart.

It was approximately a month until the last living creature would leave Addmoh.  He was preparing to guide one of the final tours of the planet, waiting for the offworlders to arrive.

He didn't recognise them, not at first.  Their body had faded with age, their tendril thin and stretched.  But they knew him.

A voice, accented unlike any Addmohnian, called out his birth name.

"Sola?" He barely had the presence of mind to say their name as they crashed into him, wrapping him in an embrace far stronger than they looked capable of.  Tangled up in the hug, and utterly shocked, he couldn't find a single word to say as they began to speak, their words coming all at once.

"I didn't think you'd come all the way here to meet me, not with how busy you are, honestly, I thought you might not have wanted to... you didn't reply to my letter letting you know I was coming-"

"You sent... letters?" His voice was shaking.  They were real, they were here, they were alive-

"Yes, I sent them as soon as I decided.  Did you not... get them?"

"Sola..." He found himself laughing, helplessly, pressing his face to the tendril that held him so tightly.  "I haven't received a letter from you in so long... I thought... I thought the worst."

"I- I'm so sorry-"

"It's not your fault...  I'm just... so glad that you're here."

"I wanted to see Addmoh properly, before it ended.  We won't be here for long, and...well, now-" They smiled almost sadly, gesturing to their graying skin, "the light won't make much difference."

"And... after?"

"We'll go wherever we want.  Make the most of every minute we have left, together."